Karen Hanover Ordered Held by Federal Judge for Alleged Violation of Release in Fraud Case

Karen Elaine Hanover was ordered detained by a federal magistrate judge Monday afternoon for allegedly violating the terms of her release on fraud charges by soliciting money via crowdfunding for a company hawking veterinarian-implanted microchips to track lost pets.

The Weekly reported Sept. 30, the day the Kickstarter campaign for the Escape Alert devices began, that Hanover owned the company's domain name and email address for potential funders. We also included a link to an online story that quoted an Escape Alert spokeswoman named Karen Zaxton. The Irvine-based writer of that piece later informed the Weekly than Hanover admitted to being Zaxton after our post was published and that she was stepping down “to avoid hurting” what she described as “a legitimate company and potential product.” The Kickstarter campaign was delayed as well.

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Karen Hanover, Convicted of Fraud, No Longer Part of Crowdfunding Microchips for Lost Pets

Hanover, a former Seal Beach resident who has since moved to West Hills, signed a plea agreement in federal court in Santa Ana this past March stating that she bilked 48 people out of $1,437,091.36 through get-rich-via-real-estate seminars across the country.

The Weekly could not confirm it was our latest reporting that led to Hanover landing on the government's radar again, but Joseph McNally, the deputy chief of the U.S. Attorney's Santa Ana office and the federal prosecutor heading the fraud case, did say, “On Friday, the court issued a warrant for violating the terms of her pre-trial release.”

Those terms were that Hanover “not engage in any employment without the permission of the probation officer and not engage in employment that causes her to solicit money from third parties,” McNally explained.

That she appeared “to have been running Escape Alert using an alias while on pre-trial release” also led to her arrest Friday night in Woodland Hills, he added. Hanover was then locked up pending her appearance before the judge Monday afternoon.

Visit the Weekly's Karen Hanover archives for more about her past.

Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!

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