Con Man Loses Gamble on 'Miracle' Trial, Gets 20 Years for Ponzi Scheme

A Dana Point man was sentenced today to nearly 20 years in prison for defrauding more than a dozen victims in Ponzi-type fraud schemes involving close-out clothing and a phony apparel company.

Shaine Joseph LaVoie, 46, was also ordered by Orange County Superior Court Judge David Hoffer to pay $821,950 in restitution, according to Deputy District Attorney Megan Wagner.

The maximum sentence in the case was 24 years and eight months behind bars.

In the defendant’s first trial in 2010, jurors deadlocked 11-1 for guilt, Wagner said. LaVoie subsequently turned down a plea deal offer that carried a five-year sentence, hoping for a “miracle” in a retrial, Wagner said.

The judge told the defendant today that his hoped-for “miracle” was the plea deal because the evidence against him was overwhelming, Wagner said.

One victim wrote a letter to the judge, saying the defendant “scammed” him out of $150,000 but the loss was actually $300,000 because the investment money came from a line of credit that had to be repaid.

LaVoie was convicted May 26 of 12 counts of grand theft, 10 counts of using a false statement in the purchase or sale of a security and single counts of theft from an elder, forgery and writing a non-sufficient funds check.

Prosecutors said LaVoie approached friends and acquaintances in 2004 to invest in the purchase of over-produced and out-of-season clothing for re-sale in a deal he claimed would involve a shipment of designer jeans being sold to a Japanese buyer.

LaVoie told investors the deal would close in three months with up to a 100 percent profit, but later claimed the shipment had been delayed due to customs problems. He then began paying back early investors with money from new investors, then cut off all contact with the 12 victims.

In 2007, LaVoie convinced two more people to invest in a fake clothing line called Agnus, then absconded with more than $14,000 paid by the victims, prosecutors said.

City News Service