Mammoth Blog

- A Calgary fraudster who used his 70-year-old grandmother's ebay account to rip off a Tennessee man for $27,400 US when he sold on an Internet auction a Toyota Forerunner he did not own should go to jail, a judge was told on Tuesday.

Crown prosecutor Nadine Nesbitt urged provincial court Judge John Bascom to impose a nine-month actual jail sentence on Eric Ireneusz Rudy, 31, had previously pleaded guilty to the July 2005 ebay fraud.

Nesbitt noted it was the second similar offence for Rudy, who also admitted to selling another car he did not own to an unsuspecting American customer in 2002.

She also told the judge Rudy pleaded guilty earlier this year to a pair of drunken assaults, at least one of them racially motivated, on taxi drivers.

He is currently facing a criminal harassment charge against a girlfriend, she added.

The prosecutor said in an agreed statement of facts read into court that Rudy had seen the Forerunner for sale in Calgary and obtained pictures and the vehicle identification number from the owner on the pretext he an interested buyer.

He then used that data to post his auction on ebay and the winning bid was made by David Wear of Pigeon Forge, Tenn. When Wear did not receive the goods, as promised, he reported it to ebay and found out the seller was using his grandmother's account. He then contacted her, prompting Rudy to return $10,000. His lawyer, Steve Wojick, who is seeking a conditional jail sentence to be served in the community, gave the court the rest of the restitution on Tuesday.

Rudy apologized in court, saying he had intended to purchase the vehicle to re-sell, but that the deal fell through. Nesbitt said Wear has told her the fraud has had a great strain on his family, who needed the money to purchase a vehicle to use for when they had their first child in 2005.

Bascom reserved his sentencing until Oct. 2 . source>>>