The 162-mph crash of a $1.5 million Ferrari Enzo on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu last year generated worldwide media interest. Each week brought bizarre new twists to the case involving prime character Bo Stefan Eriksson, the flashy Bel Air playboy/entrepreneur/mobster who loves expensive toys and colorful friends. You might recall that Eriksson—a convicted felon with ties to Eastern and Western European criminal syndicates—also somehow got an official gold badge proclaiming himself “deputy police commissioner” of “anti-terrorism” efforts for the obscure, five-bus San Gabriel Valley Transit Authority.
At the time, we joked at the Weekly that Orange County Sheriff Michael S. Carona—whom we proved had partied with a Las Vegas mob associate (see “'Dirty, Stupid or Both,'” April 26, 2006) and allowed a Lebanese-native swindler to film the county's top-secret anti-terrorism procedures (“Department of Homeland Stupidity,” May 11, 2006)—must somehow be tied to Eriksson.
Well, we thought we were joking.
Then we learned that a Smith N Wesson .357 Magnum given by Carona to reserve deputy Roger A. Davis, a Newport Beach-based real-estate broker and member of the sheriff's private advisory council, was found in Eriksson's $6 million LA mansion. (They also found three extra police badges, brass knuckles and a Scarface poster above his bed.) As a convicted felon, Eriksson isn't allowed to own guns. According to news sources, Davis claimed the convict must have mistakenly grabbed his bag at a shooting range they both use, but the two men have extensive personal ties.
Last week further strengthened the OC connection to Eriksson, who has spent more than five years in prison for forgery, counterfeiting, narcotics and firearms offenses. On Aug. 11, the Los Angeles Times reported that LA sheriff's deputies had arrested Trevor Michael Karney for lying about his role in the Ferrari crash. Karney originally claimed he happened to be passing by when he saw the crash. Cops now believe he was in the red 2003 Ferrari with Eriksson before it crashed into a utility pole.
But the Times didn't report that Karney is also a fugitive from justice in Orange County.
In October and December 2005, months before the infamous 6 a.m. crash, OC cops cited Karney for driving on a suspended license, refusing chemical tests, speeding and maintaining no auto insurance. In one case, the 26-year-old was convicted but broke the terms of his probation. In the other, he failed to appear in court to answer the charges. Judges issued still-active bench warrants for his re-arrest.
Why Karney—who remains in the LA County Jail on $60,000 bail—was spending time in OC isn't known. LA sheriff's deputies believe that after the crash, he fled to Europe and returned to the U.S. illegally through Tijuana. He has stayed on the 100-foot Marina del Rey yacht owned by Carl Freer, Eriksson's longtime associate at the defunct Gizmondo Europe Inc., according to news accounts.
Eriksson and Freer put their company $300 million in debt while living lavish lifestyles and paying at least one secretary more than $700,000 per year, according to court records. In 2005, a judge in Germany convicted Freer in an auto-finance scheme. Amazingly, he, too, was a gun-toting, badged member of the San Gabriel Transit Authority “anti-terrorism unit” created by Yosuf Maiwandi, police chief of the authority and owner of Homer's Auto Service in Monrovia.
Eriksson is now serving a three-year sentence in a California prison for a series of felonies, including embezzlement and illegal gun possession.
But in late 2005, associates of Eriksson and Freer named Davis—the Carona pal given an OC badge, gun and concealed-weapons permit for “personal safety reasons”—as president of their new wireless company, Xero Mobile. Davis, who bills himself as a real-estate agent for Hollywood stars and lives in a Lido Isle house, was recently replaced at the struggling firm, according to a January announcement by the company.
Davis did not respond to the Weekly's requests for an interview.
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CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.