By Kathleen Acuff
The former San Francisco Stingrayz coach who rooked at least 27 Los Altos business owners in a 2003 charity fund-raising scam pleaded no contest last week to charges of grand theft, false impersonation, burglary and fraud.
Terry L. Burton, 42, turned himself in June 30 in Solano County and immediately posted $50,000 bail. He faces a maximum of one year in county jail. If he repays the $8,000-$10,000 he stole by his April 6 sentencing date, he will serve only 10 months.
While he is out on bail, the address the Santa Clara County Superior Court has for him is the one he used while running his scam. The Richmond address is for a rented mailbox.
From Sept. 1 through Oct. 12, 2003, the 6-foot, 4-inch, 350-pound Burton passed himself off as a coach and former player for the Oakland Raiders. Using the stolen tax identification number of a legitimate non-profit, Richmond Rescue Mission, he convinced his victims that he headed an organization called Pros for Youth and was raising money to buy school supplies for children in East Palo Alto.
The fraud culminated in a silent auction called Making a Difference. All checks for donations and auction bids were written to Pros for Youth. Burton paid his assistant and other workers at the auction with bad checks and disappeared with the auction proceeds.
Greg Garrett, who works in security for the Raiders, told investigators that Burton had misused the team’s name before and had never played for the Raiders. Burton worked in the team’s office several years ago but not while hoodwinking local merchants.
Prosecutor Pinaki Chakravorty said, “The people he victimized are people you can really sympathize with - just regular folks in Los Altos who are running mom-and-pop shops.”
Diane Walz, owner of Balisimo Salon & Spa at 398 State St. in downtown Los Altos, was the first of Burton’s Los Altos victims. Walz met Burton when he went to her salon with a San Jose high school student who had starred in an episode of the MTV reality series “Made.” MTV had hired Burton to train Cynthia Preciodo, whose goal was a spot on her high school football team. At Burton’s suggestion, Walz later hosted the Making a Difference auction in her salon.
“Some of the hurt is going away,” Walz said last week. “At first I thought I’d never, never do a charity event again, but now I think I will. It never even entered my head it was a scam. I still don’t understand how anyone could take money from children.”
But no child expected a gift from Burton. Neither the Ravenswood City School District nor the director of community services in East Palo Alto had heard of him or Pros for Youth.
Hard to find
From February 2004, when the scam came to light, until Solano County police found him in June, Burton eluded investigators from several Bay Area agencies. He was working for a heating and air conditioning company in Fairfield and a health club in Vaca-ville when police found him.
“They let his employers know in no uncertain terms that they would continue to visit them until he self-surrendered,” Los Altos Police Sgt. John Hughmanick said last week.
Court records state that Burton has a history of drug dealing and “four prior theft cases … just like this.” San Francisco Police Inspector Julia Ford, assigned to the fraud section, said a San Francisco resident who attended the auction paid $1,200 for a pass to spend a day with the Raiders, lunching with them and watching a practice. The San Francisco resident discovered the pass was a fake when he tried to redeem it.
“The Raiders said Burton worked for them years ago but was terminated for taking Raiders equipment and supplies and selling it,” Ford said. “He knew what to say and how to make up the certificate.”
Gary Goodman of the Alternate Defenders Office, who represented Burton in court last week, had not returned the Town Crier’s phone call at press time.
