Fraud Scheme
RIVERSIDE (CNS) – A Nuevo man accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from two people whom he persuaded to give him money to invest in a bogus profit-making venture will ask a judge on Thursday to lower his bail.
Toby David Smith, 59, was arrested on July 3 following a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department investigation into a nearly two-year fraud scheme allegedly perpetrated by the defendant.
Smith is charged with four counts of financial elder abuse, two counts each of money laundering and grand theft and a sentence-enhancing allegation of targeting multiple individuals in an embezzlement scheme.
During a status hearing at the Riverside Hall of Justice Monday, Smith’s attorney submitted a motion for bail review, and Superior Court Judge Gary Polk scheduled a hearing on the motion for Thursday.
The defendant is being held in lieu of $930,000 bail — the total sum he’s accused of embezzling — at the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
His attorney intends to argue that his client’s lack of prior criminal history warrants a bail reduction.
According to a bail-setting affidavit filed earlier this month by sheriff’s Investigator Lance Colmer, Smith came under investigation in April following complaints by the adult daughter of a 71-year-old Nuevo woman, identified only as “C.C.,” who had written a series of checks to the defendant beginning in May 2022.
Colmer alleged that Smith convinced C.C., with whom he attended church, that he could generate windfall profits from an investment vehicle operated by his company, Reserve Strategies, which was determined to be entirely fake.
The defendant made the same claims to another fellow churchgoer, identified only as “F.M.,” and like C.C., the man agreed to commit funds to Reserve Strategies.
According to the affidavit, C.C. wrote a total of five checks amounting to $742,936, while the other victim committed close to $200,000.
“Toby Smith systematically transferred, depleted, spent and laundered nearly all of the money via personal spending at restaurants, travel, bills and retail purchases,” the document stated. “He was laundering the money by transferring funds to 10-plus banks and financial platforms. He transferred at least $60,000 of … (the victims’) money to two crypto-currency companies, Coinbase and Binance.”
At the outset of the investigation, Colmer said he served warrants to freeze assets in the accounts, but virtually all of the funds were gone.
The affidavit said after Smith was taken into custody, he waived his right to remain silent and agreed to be questioned, allegedly admitting “his fiduciary relationship with the victims … and that he embezzled and spent the victims’ money on personal expenses.”
“Smith admitted he has little to no outside income and no reliable or consistent income,” according to the affidavit.
The defendant has no documented prior felony or misdemeanor convictions in Riverside County.
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