Third Person Charged in Leasing Fraud Scheme

A former executive of a now-defunct Costa Mesa leasing firm was charged Friday with conspiring to defraud two lenders of $12.5 million.

Pennie Pleasant, 49, former vice president of Sonora Group Inc., also was accused of filing false income tax returns.

She is expected to plead guilty to the charges in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, according to a plea agreement. She faces a maximum of 11 years in prison and a $750,000 fine.

The phony equipment lease scheme caused the collapse of Bank of Newport in 1994 and the loss of about 100 jobs.

Last month, Sonora’s president, Lucy F. Looney-Rau, 53, and her husband, Charles B. Rau III, 50, pleaded guilty to defrauding three financial institutions of $14.2 million through the leasing scam. They are awaiting sentencing.

Sonora was a financing and leasing company for truckers and others who needed heavy equipment but couldn’t get a bank loan themselves. Looney-Rau ran the company. Rau ran Lionheart Equipment, which sold and repossessed trucks, trailers and other rolling equipment.

Sonora would buy, say, a forklift from Lionheart and lease it to a needy company. Then Sonora would sell the stream of payments owed under the lease to Bank of Newport, which collected monthly checks from the lessees.

But from early 1991 to April 1994, Looney-Rau and her husband created bogus equipment leases, using the names of several people with legitimate credit histories.

Pleasant, a former Huntington Beach resident, joined in the conspiracy by signing phony leases, according to the charges filed against her.