Law enforcement officials arrested James Delbert McConville, the Bay Area man at the center of our investigation last year, last Friday at an address outside of Bakersfield.
He’d evaded authorities after federal prosecutors formally charged him a month ago with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering in relation with a string of real estate purchases made using other people’s identities in San Diego County and elsewhere in California.
Yesterday, he appeared in Fresno federal court and pleaded not guilty to those charges. A judge declared him a flight risk and did not allow him to be released on bail. McConville will now be transported to the Northern District courts in San Francisco.
Several other defendants have also been charged in relation to this scheme. We wrote more about that last month, and a few of them made court appearances earlier this month.
— KELLY BENNETT