{"id":107705,"date":"2015-12-11T20:58:47","date_gmt":"2015-12-12T03:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/conman-gets-6-months-in-education-scam\/"},"modified":"2015-12-11T20:58:47","modified_gmt":"2015-12-12T03:58:47","slug":"conman-gets-6-months-in-education-scam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/conman-gets-6-months-in-education-scam\/","title":{"rendered":"Conman gets 6 months in education scam"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mariner\"
Mariner<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After a 45-minute hearing on Thursday, Dec. 10, Chief District Court Judge Doug Walker accepted a plea agreement, sentencing Leroy Mariner, 29, of Salt Lake City, to six months in the Montezuma County jail on a misdemeanor theft charge. Mariner was also granted a deferred judgment and sentence on a felony theft count, which includes restitution of more than $62,500, four years of supervised probation and a mental-health evaluation.<\/p>\n

If Mariner fails to abide by probationary terms, the court could sentence him to six years in prison.<\/p>\n

In 2013, Mariner spearheaded an international scam that conned seven Montezuma County residents out of more than $50,0000 and the Unlimited Learning Center out of nearly $12,000. The ruse centered on establishing an educational outreach program in Samoa.<\/p>\n

Ann Miller, executive director of the Unlimited Learning Center, said she loaned her personal credit card to Mariner, who racked up nearly $40,000 in unauthorized alcohol, gambling and travel debt. At sentencing, Miller requested that Mariner be jailed for two years, stating she feared that he would attempt to repeat the scam without conscious or consequence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a project of pure deceit,\u201d Miller said of Mariner\u2019s plot.<\/p>\n

Mariner had portrayed himself as a Samoan with family and government ties that reached as high as the Samoan ambassador to the United Nations, Ali\u2019ioaiga Elisaia.<\/p>\n

Special prosecutor Todd Risberg, district attorney in La Plata County, informed the court that he couldn\u2019t find any evidence that Mariner was Samoan or ever traveled to the Polynesian island-nation, east of Australia.<\/p>\n

Risberg also shared an email from Elisaia, who toured the Cortez area in 2013 as part of Mariner\u2019s con. Elisaia, Mariner\u2019s purported uncle, said via email that he wanted to clear the name of his government after the rip-off, stating that he was neither related to the defendant nor did the Samoan government ever sanction Mariner to act on its behalf. His statement was read aloud in open court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were made victims ourselves, and our names were also tarnished,\u201d Elisaia wrote.<\/p>\n

Risberg also noted that Mariner had attempted to mimic the 2013 scam this summer with the Utah Division of Indian Affairs. According to Risberg, Mariner contacted the Utah agency and requested to make a presentation on behalf of the Samoan government.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have been wondering what he\u2019s doing,\u201d Risberg said of Mariner\u2019s actions. \u201cIt\u2019s all been made up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Re-appointed to represent Mariner last week, public defender Ken Pace said he suspects that his client suffered from bi-polar disorder, stating that Mariner \u201clives in a delusional world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJail is not going to change Mr. Mariner,\u201d Pace argued. \u201cHe needs mental-health treatment, not jail.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also requesting leniency, Mariner told the court that \u201ca lot of things went wrong in 2013,\u201d indicating that the Samoan government had since abandoned him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really sorry,\u201d Mariner said at his sentencing. \u201cI\u2019m willing to take full responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Miller, several other victims also testified at last week\u2019s hearing as Mariner sat hunched over at the defense table.<\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Mariner was smug, arrogant and demanding,\u201d one victim said. \u201cHe was slimy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe feel like we were kicked in the face,\u201d another victim testified.<\/p>\n

tbaker@the-journal.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mariner After a 45-minute hearing on Thursday, Dec. 10, Chief District Court Judge Doug Walker accepted a plea agreement, sentencing Leroy Mariner, 29, of Salt Lake City, to six months in the Montezuma County jail on a misdemeanor theft charge. Mariner was also granted a deferred judgment and sentence on a felony theft count, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,13,533,74],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-prison","tag-theft"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107705"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}