Pharmacist Sentenced for Bilking Elderly Customers

A pharmacist was sentenced Thursday to one year in Ventura County Jail and 10 years’ probation for bilking more than $400,000 from elderly customers who participated in an investment scheme.

Under terms of the probation, John Peter Hajducko, 55, of Thousand Oaks is barred for 10 years from trading in securities and from soliciting funds for business ventures, prosecutors said. The court also ordered Hajducko to be counseled for gambling addiction, prosecutors said.

Hajducko pleaded guilty Sept. 29 in Ventura County Superior Court to 12 felony counts of elder abuse and grand theft, prosecutors said.

Hajducko had been employed at a Sav-On drugstore on Telegraph Road in Ventura where he persuaded 13 customers to invest in a pharmaceutical distribution company he claimed he was forming, promising high returns, prosecutors said.

A Superior Court judge granted a prosecutor’s request in July to seize Hajducko’s assets, including his home, to pay restitution to his victims. The funds seized can only be distributed after a defendant is convicted, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Shirley Hayton.

On Thursday, the court accepted an offer to sell Hajducko’s house for $935,000, Hayton said. The court also signed an order to transfer into the court’s possession about $60,000 from an online trading account held by Hajducko, Hayton said.

Hajducko’s wife, Lynne Hajducko, is challenging the victims’ rights to full restitution and is seeking to claim money from the seized assets, Hayton said. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 12.