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 girl she holds chargeable for his loss of life.
Robert Tascon had been embroiled in a authorized dispute since 2021, Williams stated by tears, over a home he owned in an exquisite, unique space in Encino. That September, investigators say, a girl named Caroline Herrling fraudulently offered his home out from below him for $1.5 million.
Herrling, 44, pleaded responsible final 12 months 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 might begin our lives over,” Williams instructed 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 accordance with a U.S. Postal Inspection Service report. They offered sufficient cash for him to spend freely, Travis Hartgraves, a lawyer and case supervisor for Tascon, instructed investigators final 12 months.
However Tascon developed an alcohol downside, Hartgraves instructed investigators. Williams persuaded him to maneuver together with her to Abilene, Texas, in 2018 to get away from adverse influences.
Tascon’s Encino dwelling was his final asset, though he nonetheless had month-to-month funds from the trusts, Hartgraves instructed Lyndon Versoza, a postal inspector working the fraud case.
Tascon wished to promote the house, in accordance with 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 turn out 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 faux identification paperwork to pose because the home-owner, in accordance with the U.S. Justice Division. Herrling had represented herself to the customer as a licensed California legal professional representing property house owners in distressed conditions needing to promote, in accordance with an affidavit from Mark O’Donnell, a murder detective supervisor with the LAPD.
In a plea settlement, Herrling admitted to organising 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 instructed 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 accordance with the affidavit.
After the home was offered out from below him, Tascon filed a lawsuit in an try and 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 instructed Versoza.
The fraudulent sale was the ultimate straw; it consumed Tascon, Hartgraves stated, in accordance with courtroom 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 photograph.
(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 go away Tascon destitute, in accordance with the affidavit.
Throughout sentencing, Herrling’s legal professional, Alex Kessel, stated he didn’t assume there was “any proof to counsel that my consumer straight prompted the loss of life” of Tascon.
“He had a psychological sickness that developed lengthy earlier than the home in California was fraudulently offered,” Kessel stated, 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 word the place he laid out his way of thinking and psychological state on the time.”
Asst. U.S. Atty. Andrew Brown burdened that Tascon “had one property and he misplaced it.”
Frimpong agreed with the prosecutor. Through the sentencing listening to, she stated there was proof “sufficient to seek out the loss of life was a suicide and it was prompted partially by the lack of [Tascon’s] property.”
Tascon bequeathed his property to Williams, his common-law spouse, investigators stated. Nonetheless, with the fraudulent sale of the Encino dwelling, he had nothing left to provide her.
When Williams spoke in courtroom, she acknowledged that Tascon was “mentally fragile,” however she stated the sale of his dwelling had solely worsened issues.
Williams held a framed photograph of Tascon when she first spoke. She described him as her “finest good friend.” After his loss of life, Williams instructed the choose, she’d additionally tried to kill herself.
“This girl is an enormous manipulator and a con artist and she’s gotten away with utilizing the lifeless,” Williams instructed 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.”
