San Clemente's Peter Garcia, 70, and Virginia Kay Furr-Garcia, 50, are reunited and it feels so bad. Seats are being warmed in a Santa Ana courtroom this morning so the former married couple can be tried on charges of stealing
$350,000 from the man's then 89-year-old mother to spend on groceries and household bills.
]
The couple were
still together between Jan. 1, 2009, and Sept. 27, 2010, when they allegedly conspired to close four annuity funds belonging to Garcia's
mother and without her consent. The
money was first transferred into a joint account held by Garcia and his
mother and then to one he held with his then-wife, the Orange County District Attorney's office claims.
When the old lady could not pay her bills at an assisted-living facility, she discovered she'd been cleaned out and contacted the Orange County Sheriff's Department, which arrested her son and then-daughter-in-law last August.
The former husband and wife are each charged with felony grand theft, conspiracy to defraud
another of property, conspiracy to commit forgery, and theft from an
elder with sentencing enhancements for property loss over $200,000 and
aggravated white collar crime over $100,000.
They could get six years in state prison with a conviction.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.