O.C. BUSINESS PLUS : Phone Solicitor Found Guilty in Scam of Elderly : Courts: Verdict against a telemarketer who promised much but delivered little may result in 90 years in prison.

A federal jury has convicted a 41-year-old man who was accused of helping operate an Orange County prize promotion telemarketing scam that prosecutors say took $500,000 from about 1,000 elderly victims.

The defendant, Randy Ray Richards, was found guilty of two counts of mail fraud and three counts of wire fraud Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana.

Richards worked as a telemarketer for United Publishing Inc., which operated in Garden Grove, Fullerton and Buena Park from July 1995 until the Orange County Boiler Room Task Force shut it down in March 1997.

Using the name “Eli Dalton,” Richards called elderly people and told them they had won valuable prizes such as television sets, automobiles or $15,000 cashier’s checks, but could collect them only if they paid advance fees of up to $2,300, prosecutors said.

The promised prizes never materialized. Instead, the “winners” received cheap watches, worthless hotel certificates or one-year magazine subscriptions, prosecutors said.

Six other people involved in the scam have pleaded guilty to fraud charges and are awaiting sentencing.

They are Kevin Duane Lutz, 40, Robyn Renee Kennedy, 31, and James Brian Smith, 30, all of Garden Grove; Kathy Spell, 33, of Santa Ana; William Andrew Meloni, 28, of Corona; and Sonny Markovich, 25, of Fullerton.

Richards, who was in the Avenal state prison in Northern California for an unrelated conviction before being charged in the telemarketing case, is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 22.

He could face up to 90 years in prison because of stiff federal penalties for telemarketing schemes that target the elderly.