Teacher Sentenced for Investment Scam : Court: Stanley Gordon will serve three years in a work-furlough program. He bilked colleagues and students out of $225,000.

A popular high school jewelry teacher was sentenced Friday to three years in a prison work-furlough program for swindling students and colleagues out of more than $225,000 in a bogus gold refinement scheme.

Stanley Gordon, 54, avoided the gaze of his former friends Friday as they denounced him in court as a liar and thief who stole their life savings to support a lavish lifestyle that included giving cars as gifts and staying in $4,000-a-night hotel rooms.

“It was all bald-faced lies,” said Victor Cook of Corona del Mar, who told the judge that Gordon took $8,000 from him and another $65,000 from Cook’s bedridden mother, Sophia Cook, who is now penniless and cannot afford the nursing care she needs.

“We are talking about an extreme psychopath,” Cook said, raising his voice as he stared at Gordon during the sentencing hearing.

Floyd Young, 58, of Long Beach, told Superior Court Judge William R. Froeberg that he may never be able to retire because he gave Gordon nearly $70,000--wiping out his pension fund. Young said the former Santa Ana High School jewelry teacher persuaded him and others that the gold investment scheme was legitimate by returning some initial profits on their investments--before asking them for more money.

“We know now it was all a scam,” Young said. “I’d like to see his future as bad as mine.”

Gordon pleaded guilty last month to 46 felony counts of defrauding 11 men and women, many of whom lost their life savings. Prosecutors say he told unwitting investors they were guaranteed profits through a plan to buy used or scrap gold at low prices, refine it, and sell it for higher prices.

In all, prosecutors believe Gordon took about $750,000 from his colleagues and students, many of whom were taking Gordon’s jewelry-making class as a hobby or to learn a new trade.

Authorities believe Gordon used the money to pay for a lifestyle that included worldwide travel, expensive gifts and only the best accommodations. Deputy Dist. Atty. William L. Overtoom told the judge that Gordon violated the trust and respect that society gives its teachers.

“I ask the court to consider what lessons the students have learned from Mr. Gor don,” Overtoom said. “He has shattered that trust and confidence.”

Froeberg sentenced Gordon to three years in a Los Angeles restitution center, a relatively new program for nonviolent offenders. He will work during the day and spend his nights and weekends in prison, the prosecutor said.

A third of Gordon’s salary will pay the costs of incarceration, a third will go to his victims and a third will be held for Gordon until his release, Overtoom said. It is not clear what job Gordon will perform, the prosecutor said, adding that he has little hope the victims will ever get all their money back.

Defense attorney Robert D. Coviello told the judge that his client is sorry and is now broke, although many of the victims on Friday accused the teacher of having money stashed abroad in Europe, where he was traveling before his arrest.

Outside of court, Coviello said his client was also a victim of another man who made off with Gordon’s--and everyone else’s money.

“There was never any intent for this to happen at all,” Coviello said, adding that his client has lost his wife, career and financial security.

Froeberg told the victims in the courtroom that he felt constrained by sentencing limitations in the case and would like to have given the teacher a longer sentence and made him pay back more money. But the judge said legal restrictions required him to craft a short prison time coupled with a restitution requirement.

“I wish there were something I could do to get your money back for you,” the judge told the victims.