Fake Newport Beach Lawyer Sentenced

A convicted felon who posed as a lawyer and represented hundreds of clients at his Newport Beach practice has been sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison.

Harold David Goldstein told the federal judge at his sentencing hearing Wednesday that he made sincere efforts to represent his clients despite his lack of a law license.

Goldstein, 59, told U.S. District Judge David Carter in Santa Ana that he won 25 cases in the eight months that he operated a busy Newport Beach law practice.

“I lied about being a lawyer, but other than the lie, everything else was totally legit,” he said.

Goldstein represented hundreds of clients, including many immigrants at deportation hearings, said Asst. U.S. Atty. Andrew Stolper. “It’s a disaster,” he said.

Authorities are reviewing cases Goldstein handled, but nothing can be done for the immigrants who were deported, Stolper said.

A jury convicted Goldstein of perjury in August 2003, and he pleaded guilty to fraud. He was arrested six months earlier, after a former partner in his Newport Beach law firm discovered the deception and contacted authorities.

Goldstein has convictions dating from the 1970s, when he was found guilty of defrauding 13,000 investors in a commodities scheme and of selling $1 million in phony gold contracts.

In 1980, the Los Angeles County district attorney charged him with stealing $4 million from small businesses seeking loans at a phony overseas bank that he and a partner had established.

He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was released in 1986.