The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced that Daniel Narsi David was convicted by a federal jury today on 19 counts of mail fraud, use of fictitious names and money laundering.  The conviction followed a trial before U.S. District Judge Susan Illston that alleged a two-year course of fraudulent conduct involving pay telephones.

Mr. David, age 38 from Berkeley, was first charged in March 2002 with a scheme to reap money from pay telephone calls to 800-numbers.  The evidence at trial established that owners of pay telephones receive 24 cents for each legitimate 800-number telephone call made from a pay telephone.  Mr. David and his business partner, Scott Nisbet, arranged with Pacific Bell for 23 pay telephone lines to be routed into an empty office space in South San Francisco.  Mr. David did not attach actual pay telephones to the lines, however, but hooked up an auto-dialer to the lines and programmed it to make telephone calls to 800 numbers for the purpose of collecting 24 cents per call.  The evidence showed that Mr. David and his partner made more than 2 million telephone calls, and received a total of nearly half a million dollars. 

As part of the scheme, Mr. David and Mr. Nisbet operated using the names Bill Jansen, Dave Jacobs and Mark Ryan.  None of these people was real.  The checks representing the proceeds of the crime were shipped at the defendant's direction to a mail drop in Scottsdale, Arizona opened by Mr. David and his partner using a fake notary stamp and false driver's license number.  They paid for the mail drop with cash stuffed into Federal Express envelopes and arranged for the checks to be shipped to them in San Francisco at various locations.  In one instance, they had the checks shipped to a motel or hotel in San Francisco.  In another instance, the checks were shipped by same-day courier through United Airlines.

After receiving the checks, Mr. David laundered the funds by depositing the checks made payable to Jansen, Jacobs and Ryan into an attorney's trust account.  Mr. David arranged for the attorney to make out new checks to him from the trust account in the same amounts, which Mr. David then deposited into his own Bank of America accounts.  He was charged with laundering the funds through the lawyer's trust account for the purpose of concealing their nature, source and location.

The jury convicted Mr. David on seven counts of mail fraud, seven counts of using a fictitious name in connection with the U.S. mail, and five counts of money laundering.  He was found not guilty on one count of conspiracy.

The maximum statutory penalty for each of the 14 counts of mail fraud and using fictitious names is five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a $250,000 fine and restitution.  The maximum statutory penalty for each count of money laundering is 20 years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a $500,000 fine or twice the value of the laundered funds, whichever is greater.  In addition, Mr. David still faces forfeiture proceedings concerning $444,198.91 in laundered funds or a property owned by Mr. David at 406 Berkeley Park Boulevard in Kensington, California.  However, the actual sentence will be dictated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take into account a number of factors, and will be imposed in the discretion of the Court.  Mr. David's sentencing has been scheduled for June 25, 2004 at 11 a.m. before Judge Illston.

The prosecution is the result of an investigation by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Internal Revenue Service-Criminal Investigation division.  Mark Parrent and Matthew J. Jacobs are the Assistant U.S. Attorneys who prosecuted the case with the assistance of legal technician Elaine Rene-McCoy.