A former California lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to federal felony charges after she used more than $8 million of her investor’s money to fund a lavish lifestyle, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday.
Sara Jacqueline King, 39, has been charged with wire fraud and money laundering. King, a former lawyer who worked in Newport Beach, will make her first court appearance on June 20.
According to a plea agreement, King admitted to operating the King Family Lending LLC – a Newport Beach-based company that allegedly issued short-term, high-interest loans to wealthy clients, such as professional athletes and celebrities.
The loans were supposedly secured with the borrowers’ assets, such as designer handbags, watches, yachts, and earnings from guaranteed sports contracts.
From January 2022 to January 2023, King, through her company, recruited investors to fund her business loans.
She reportedly told investors that their investments were secured through the same collateral as the loans, that she would retain possession of the items and would sell them should a borrower default on a loan to pay investors in full, according to a news release.
King also told investors that she would keep a percentage of the interest that occurred on the loan and that investors would receive a portion of the interest along with their initial investment.
However, King never initiated or funded any loan. Instead, she used the investors’ money to gamble at Las Vegas casinos and support her lavish lifestyle, prosecutors said. About $132,156 of that money was used to buy a Porsche Taycan electric sports car.
King admitted to causing five investors to lose more than $8 million and agreed that an applicable restitution amount would be at least $8.7 million.
The FBI and IRS Criminal Investigation are still investigating this case.
