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Miracle Williams detailed to a federal choose the dire state of affairs that led to her associate’s suicide. She talked in regards to the lady she holds chargeable for his loss of life.
Robert Tascon had been embroiled in a authorized dispute since 2021, Williams mentioned by tears, over a home he owned in a wonderful, unique space in Encino. That September, investigators say, a lady named Caroline Herrling fraudulently offered his home out from underneath him for $1.5 million.
Herrling, 44, pleaded responsible final yr to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and was sentenced Friday by Choose Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong to twenty years in federal jail.
“He was attempting to promote the home so we may begin our lives over,” Williams advised the choose throughout Herrling’s sentencing listening to, her voice cracking with emotion. “The state of affairs made him really feel helpless.”
Tascon got here from a rich household that arrange two trusts for him in California, in response to a U.S. Postal Inspection Service report. They supplied sufficient cash for him to spend freely, Travis Hartgraves, a lawyer and case supervisor for Tascon, advised investigators final yr.
However Tascon developed an alcohol drawback, Hartgraves advised investigators. Williams persuaded him to maneuver along with her to Abilene, Texas, in 2018 to get away from detrimental influences.
Tascon’s Encino dwelling was his final asset, though he nonetheless had month-to-month funds from the trusts, Hartgraves advised Lyndon Versoza, a postal inspector working the fraud case.
Tascon wished to promote the house, in response to the postal inspectors’ report, which was filed as a part of the case towards Herrling. However he couldn’t as a result of it had grow to be occupied by squatters. It’s nonetheless unclear how Herrling discovered the property.
She offered Tascon’s dwelling by utilizing a co-conspirator with pretend identification paperwork to pose because the house owner, in response to the U.S. Justice Division. Herrling had represented herself to the customer as a licensed California legal professional representing property homeowners in distressed conditions needing to promote, in response to an affidavit from Mark O’Donnell, a murder detective supervisor with the LAPD.
In a plea settlement, Herrling admitted to establishing financial institution and E-Commerce accounts to obtain the proceeds of the sale, which Tascon didn’t authorize and which was achieved by identification theft.
Hartgraves advised Versoza that the home was offered for half its worth.
Herrling used cash from the sale to assist pay for a house in West Hills, in response to the affidavit.
After the home was offered out from underneath him, Tascon filed a lawsuit in an try to get it again.
“I’m by no means going to get my home again,” Hartgraves recalled Tascon telling him.
“The fraudulent sale nearly crashed him,” Hartgraves advised Versoza.
The fraudulent sale was the ultimate straw; it consumed Tascon, Hartgraves mentioned, in response to court docket filings.
Tascon killed himself on Sept. 11, 2022. He was 53. The police report famous that he had a historical past of psychological sickness and was concerned in fraud litigation.
Robert Tascon in an undated picture.
(Los Angeles Police Division)
When investigators interviewed Herrling in January 2023, she denied having something to do with the sale of Tascon’s property. She claimed her solely involvement was driving Tascon to a notary to facilitate the sale of the home — and that she was solely paid round $150 to take action.
When Versoza requested Herrling to explain Tascon, she couldn’t, saying that he had worn a hat and a masks. Later, when confronted, Herrling didn’t deny profiting off the sale, saying as a substitute that she didn’t depart Tascon destitute, in response to the affidavit.
Throughout sentencing, Herrling’s legal professional, Alex Kessel, mentioned he didn’t assume there was “any proof to counsel that my consumer instantly triggered the loss of life” of Tascon.
“He had a psychological sickness that developed lengthy earlier than the home in California was fraudulently offered,” Kessel mentioned, citing a earlier suicide try by Tascon in 2021. “We by no means know why anyone kills themselves … I haven’t been given in proof any suicide observe the place he laid out his frame of mind and psychological state on the time.”
Asst. U.S. Atty. Andrew Brown confused that Tascon “had one property and he misplaced it.”
Frimpong agreed with the prosecutor. Through the sentencing listening to, she mentioned there was proof “sufficient to search out the loss of life was a suicide and it was triggered partly by the lack of [Tascon’s] property.”
Tascon bequeathed his property to Williams, his common-law spouse, investigators mentioned. Nevertheless, with the fraudulent sale of the Encino dwelling, he had nothing left to provide her.
When Williams spoke in court docket, she acknowledged that Tascon was “mentally fragile,” however she mentioned the sale of his dwelling had solely worsened issues.
Williams held a framed picture of Tascon when she first spoke. She described him as her “greatest pal.” After his loss of life, Williams advised the choose, she’d additionally tried to kill herself.
“This woman is a giant manipulator and a con artist and she or he’s gotten away with utilizing the lifeless,” Williams advised the choose, referring to Herrling. “Maintain her accountable and don’t let her do that to anybody else. As a result of this has ruined my life.”
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