Auto-Leasing Scam Kingpin Gets 3 Years : Courts: Mission Viejo man had lived in the Philippines and evaded investigators for years. In 1989 alone he netted $500,000.

A Mission Viejo man described by authorities as the kingpin of an auto-leasing scam has been sentenced to three years in prison, a state investigator said Monday.

Orlando DeLeon Pangilinan, 28, who has been in custody since March on charges of operating a fraudulent leasing business, using methamphetamines and stealing four automobiles, was sentenced Friday in Orange County Superior Court, said Rande King, an investigator for the state Department of Motor Vehicles.

“This was quite a case,” said King, who spent several years tracking Pangilinan from the Philippines, where he evaded U.S. law enforcement officers for three years, to Mission Viejo, where he was apprehended while using an alias. “He is the kingpin in the business.”

In 1989 alone, Pangilinan netted himself $500,000 by illegally subleasing cars for owners who were having financial difficulties, King said. When he was taken into custody, he was living in a $500,000 home in Mission Viejo.

“He was doing pretty well,” King said.

Acting as a subleasing agent, Pangilinan told cash-strapped car owners that he would find people willing to take over their payments for a fee ranging from $1,500 to $6,000.

Purchase and lease agreements typically prohibit subleasing vehicles without consent of the lender, and state law makes it illegal for a third party to assist in subleasing and transferring a vehicle without the lender’s consent.

In Pangilinan’s case, King said, the monthly payments and fees charged to the lessees disappeared, leaving the car owners with the responsibility of back payments.

Pangilinan did not act alone, authorities said. His partner, Charles Carter, 49, has also been convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Another suspect, Harry Ellsworth Jack, 69, is still at large.

Pangilinan also faced charges of possessing methamphetamines and stealing four cars earlier this year by purchasing them under a phony name and letting the down-payment checks bounce. Two of those cars have been recovered, King said.

King said that Pangilinan will probably serve half of his three-year sentence.