Businessman Gets 10 Years in Investment Fraud Case

Sitting before a courtroom sprinkled with those he has swindled and duped, Frank Boyd Cockrell III was sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $2.3 million in restitution.

“Mr. Cockrell, in its own way, the crime which you have committed is one of the most heinous I have ever come across,” Ventura Superior Court Judge Vincent O’Neill said before handing down the maximum sentence permissible under the law.

Over a 10-year period, Cockrell bilked seven people and two insurance companies out of more than $1.4 million, which he then used to support his lavish lifestyle--complete with a Rolls-Royce, million-dollar mansion and driver. When Ventura County Grand Jury indicted him on fraud charges, prosecutors say he plotted to blow up the courthouse.

Cockrell, 50, was convicted last month of 13 criminal counts, including grand theft, money laundering and tax evasion. He could be out of prison in five years.

The conclusion of the six-week Ventura trial, parts of which defense attorney Ed Whipple likened to the movie “Pulp Fiction,” sets the stage for another trial.

The wannabe screenwriter now faces separate charges of attempted murder in Los Angeles County for allegedly plotting to blow up the Ventura County courthouse to destroy evidence in his fraud case.

The bombing trial was put on hold until the conclusion of the Ventura County case.

The Sherman Oaks businessman made his bread and butter by faking his credentials and talking the rich and famous out of their money.

Over the past 10 years, he has misrepresented himself as everything from a card-carrying comedian of the Screen Actors Guild, to one of the seven richest men in California, to an oil millionaire listed in Who’s Who--in an effort to lure wealthy investors.

Susan Forward, the author of “Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them,” expressed her hatred for the man who had swindled her out of her retirement account and the money she had set aside for her two children.

“This man is a mutant from hell,” she said after the sentencing. “He does not have the same wiring the rest of us have. He has no feelings. If it were up to me, he would get the death penalty.”

The bald, bespectacled Cockrell sat with his feet shackled at the defense table. Instead of the hundred-dollar suits with silk handkerchiefs he had appeared in throughout his trial, he wore jailhouse blues.

Indeed, Cockrell fought hard to ensure things would never reach this point, prosecutors say.

During the trial, an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms testified that Cockrell was so angry about the fraud case that he tried to hire the agent to blow up the courthouse.

Agent Charles Pratt testified that Cockrell wanted to “kill as many D.A.’s, judges and investigators” as possible, then knock down two freeway passes with a rocket launcher.

Cockrell then wanted to write a movie script about his campaign of murder and mayhem, Pratt testified.

The judge allowed Pratt’s testimony in the fraud trial, ruling that it could indicate Cockrell’s “consciousness of guilt.”

In a May 21 interview for his final probation report, Cockrell denied swindling investors, denied fraudulently spending their money, denied a knowledge of victimizing the two insurance companies and blamed his colleagues for bringing him bad investors and employees.

“This is a crappy case,” he said in his interview. “There is not one shred of evidence against me.”

In addition, Cockrell claimed that his entire case was biased because Judge O’Neill once worked for the district attorney’s office.

The report continues: Cockrell “further alleged that [Dist. Atty.] Michael Bradbury is a very high level drug trafficker and wants him [the defendant] killed. He is in protective custody in the Ventura County Jail. He has been attacked twice, and he believes that the attacks were ordered by Mr. Bradbury.”

Despite the fact that Cockrell received the maximum sentence for his crime, the prosecutor in the case said he is not satisfied. Mark Aveis, a former deputy district attorney who now works for a Los Angeles law firm, said Friday he does not believe statutes provide enough punishment for white-collar offenses.

“Like so many other white-collar criminals, till the day he walks into prison, he shows no remorse,” Aveis said. “I would give my bar card to have the state mete out harsher sentences to white-collar criminals.”

As Cockrell stood and shuffled out of the courtroom to spend a decade behind bars, Susan Forward, her daughter Wendy and Cockrell’s former wife, Karen Goldman, turned and called after him, “Bye, Frank!”

“As a writer, no one would believe this case,” Forward said. “People would say, this is so over the top.”

She added: “I always say, I’d like to see the pitch meeting on this one--it would make a great screenplay.”