Crime & Safety

Pair Convicted in Murrieta Rental Scam

Christopher Carlos Gonzales, 33, and Kimberly Michelle Quinn, 22, are serving jail time in connection with the June 2012 scam that involved a vacant house in the Murrieta Oaks neighborhood.

A man with a criminal past involving counterfeit money and mail theft and a woman who worked alongside him in a foiled Murrieta rental scam are serving jail time.

Christopher Carlos Gonzales, 33, and Kimberly Michelle Quinn, 22, were arrested by Murrieta police in June 2012 in connection with charging rent and a partial deposit for a vacant home in the Murrieta Oaks neighborhood that they did not own.

A family of six saw the home on Pinyon Street listed for rent on craiglist.org, Murrieta police Detective Kelly Sik said at the time. The would-be renters shelled out $2,600 to Gonzales, only to learn they had become victims in the scam.

"He told us his father had cancer, that it was his father's house and that he was taking care of it for him," said Lisa White, the hopeful renter. "He had a whole story for me."

The scam was uncovered when a real estate agent familiar with the neighborhood followed a hunch. It was learned that the name on the rental application did not match the owner’s name.

“Everything was leaning toward fraudulence so that is when I reported it to police," White said at the time. Police had to ask the Whites to leave the home.

Nearly a year later—on April 25—Gonzales was sentenced to one year in federal prison and one year of supervised release in the case when a plea agreement in which he admitted guilt on three counts of grand theft was reached, court records show. Three counts of burglary were dismissed as part of the agreement.

Because Gonzales had been serving three years probation for a federal case in Nevada that involved his 2009 conviction of possession of stolen mail and making counterfeit money, he will serve the one year in federal prison.

“Upon his conviction from his plea in this case, his federal parole was violated and he was sent to federal prison for a year,” said John Hall, spokesman for the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office, in a written statement. “That local sentence was to be served concurrent (at the same time) with his sentence in federal prison for the parole violation.”

Quinn pleaded guilty to four counts of grand theft and one count of writing a non-sufficient funds check. Dismissed were six counts of burglary, two counts of petty theft, two counts of fraudulently passing bad checks, and three counts of non-sufficient funds checks.

Quinn was sentenced to nine months, with 150 of those days straight jail time and the balance of 120 days in a work release program, as well as three years of formal probation, according to Hall. Quinn received no credit for time served, Hall said.

Victim restitution was also being sought in the case, according to Riverside County court records.

Find out what's happening in Murrietawith free, real-time updates from Patch.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

To request removal of your name from an arrest report, submit these required items to arrestreports@patch.com.