A Newport Beach man who offered customers false promises of debt relief pleaded guilty Monday to federal fraud charges.
John Vartanian, 57, is the fifth Orange County resident to plead guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud in connection with a scheme run by Nelson Gamble & Associates and later Jackson Hunter Morris & Knight, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
Employees portrayed their business, located in Irvine and then Newport Beach, as a law firm that would help people negotiate favorable settlements with creditors, federal prosecutors said.
Clients would make monthly payments, believing they were going toward paying down their debts. Instead, prosecutors say, employees took much of the payments for…
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