Filthy Rich and Filling His Own Ice Bucket

Sometimes, a con man’s misdeeds are so off the charts, so out there, that mere condemnation seems pointless. The sins transcend mere bad behavior and enter a rarefied realm of human malfeasance. Rather than lambaste the transgressor, you find yourself with mouth agape at the dramatic arc of the whole spectacle.

In that regard, the pending fraud case of money manager James Lewis Jr., late of Orange County and a budget motel in Texas, comes to mind.

The allegations against Lewis put him in a kind of near-legendary category for ripping people off. Let’s just say that, if authorities are correct, Lewis has set the bar very high.

Crash-and-burn stories of presumed investor geniuses are not new. What makes Lewis’ fall from grace so compelling is the way it ended: his arrest in a Comfort Inn in Houston where he used a senior discount card to knock $6 from his room rate. Instead of paying the normal $61.99 for the night, according to a hotel clerk, Lewis, 57, got in for $55.99 after whipping out his AARP card.

Is that beautiful or what? A man who lived lavishly in Orange County -- albeit with much of it coming allegedly from the life savings of others -- spent his last night as a fugitive still working the angles. I wonder if, as he passed a soda vending machine in the hotel, his thoughts perhaps drifted back to the swim-up bar with the four TVs that adorned his backyard pool in Villa Park?

It’s a long way from there to a Comfort Inn in Houston. The three nights before, authorities say, Lewis had been hotel-hopping in Tallahassee, Fla.

Had he been taken down in a lush Spanish villa or a Monte Carlo casino -- perhaps at a baccarat table with a fine liqueur at hand -- Lewis at least could say he went out in the manner to which he’d grown accustomed.

As The Times’ Scott Reckard has reported in various stories on Lewis and the allegations against him, he lived in a Villa Park mansion with its view of Santa Catalina Island. And there were the requisite jewels, tailored clothes and luxury cars.

The FBI nabbed him 10 days ago in Houston, ending a nationwide search for the man accused of reporting phony earnings and taking in about $100 million from some 5,000 investors in the last 20 years. The firm sorting out Lewis’ assets has said his records suggest he owed about $814 million to his clients, but the overwhelming percentage of that is phony profit.

An official for the court-appointed firm, Robb Evans & Associates, says it has handled a number of pretty large cases over the years. “This is the most egregious case we’ve seen,” says chief operating officer Brick Kane, referring to the gap between the amount Lewis actually has and what his clients originally invested.

Lewis was arrested on one count of mail fraud but likely will face other federal charges later.

The scope of Lewis’ alleged swindling almost defies belief. If there were such a thing as a serial killer of fraud, Lewis may be the prototype. The Securities and Exchange Commission says Lewis conducted one of the longest-running Ponzi schemes, soliciting money since 1983. In classic pyramid style, investigators say, Lewis used money from new investors to pay off others.

Kane says it may take the firm two or three weeks to finish its “asset tracing” work. Rather than keep computer files, Lewis basically confined his payout records to his checkbook, Kane says, making the firm’s work more time-consuming.

History likely will remember Lewis for the cooked books and personal devastation felt by investors.

I hope there’s at least a poetic footnote that his final financial expenditure came in a budget hotel.

“It was definitely a change in lifestyle,” Kane says dryly.

Dana Parsons’ column

appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821, at dana.parsons@latimes.com or at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626.