State hits Costa Mesa telemarketer with $1.4M fraud judgment

A Costa Mesa-based telemarketing company has been ordered to pay a $1.4-million judgment for cheating more than 50 victims through bogus “investment recovery” services, the state attorney general’s office announced Monday.

Property Protection Team, based out of a South Coast Metro office, cold-called investors — mostly seniors — who had already lost money in prior investments or who sought to dump money-losing timeshare interests, the attorney general’s office said. But after collecting more than $250,000 in illegal advance fees over three years, the telemarketers didn’t deliver.

State prosecutors named Property Protection Team owners Lacy Jae Treece and Thomas S. White, of Santee, and commissioned telemarketers Christopher P. Anderson and Thomas Blair Morris, cities of residence not given, as the participants in the scheme.

White sometimes used the alias Brad Stevens, Anderson sometimes used the alias Paul Maside, and Morris used the aliases Jason Peterson and Thomas Moore.

The state accused the defendants of unfair business practices and making false or misleading statements.

“Defendants pitch their services by overstating their expertise and success, while understating the difficulty of recovering any funds or obtaining relief,” the state said in a 2019 complaint against the four. “Defendants sell false hope.”

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