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Theft by Conversion (Grand Theft)

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cpeavey

Guest
Greetings:

I live in California and am the holder of a Note with personal property pledged as collateral. The collateral is recorded on a UCC-1 form with the County Recorder. The debtor has defaulted on the note and I am in the process of foreclosing the note. The debtor has alienated the property (sold, gave away, I have no idea, but its gone). The California Penal Code has very specific paragraphs covering this exact situation. I can't seem to convince the police or the local District Attorney to at least look at this case. Is there anything I can do? I am planning to foreclose on this note: can I ask for a judgement whereby the judge rules that a crime has been committed?

Thanks and Best regards
 
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Son of Slam

Senior Member
cpeavey said:
Greetings:

I live in California and am the holder of a Note with personal property pledged as collateral. The collateral is recorded on a UCC-1 form with the County Recorder. The debtor has defaulted on the note and I am in the process of foreclosing the note. The debtor has alienated the property (sold, gave away, I have no idea, but its gone). The California Penal Code has very specific paragraphs covering this exact situation. I can't seem to convince the police or the local District Attorney to at least look at this case. Is there anything I can do? I am planning to foreclose on this note: can I ask for a judgement whereby the judge rules that a crime has been committed?

Thanks and Best regards


Sometimes it's good to remind some people of who is working for who.
 

djohnson

Senior Member
Can you please give more specific information. Is the UCC-1 on property? Who is the owner of the property a this time? What exactly was the money for? It should not be able to be sold with the UCC-1 on it.
 
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cpeavey

Guest
Thank you for your interest. The sale was of a business opportunity ( a tavern) and the note was for the business fixtures. The UCC-1 was recorded with a list of the business fixtures as collateral. The business operated for several months and the debtor made the payments as agreed. The debtor was a tenant in one of my commercial units. The debtor was evicted from the commercial unit last month for violation of the lease terms (refused to provide liability insurance). The tenant removed the fixtures which secured the note and either sold, gave away, or decided to keep personally and then proceeded to stop paying for the note. The California Penal Code clearly describes the tenant's actions and defines them as theft and since it was under a note whose face value was greater than $400 ($10,000 actually) it is defined as grand theft. Unfortunately I am not able to get the police to take any action: they just don't understand even when I provided copies of the Penal Code citations.
 

djohnson

Senior Member
I'm not sure about California, I am in Tennessee. I file UCC-1 fixture filing liens for mainly heat pumps and associated equipment. I think where your problem is coming in is because you actually own the property the the fixtures were for. As there was probably no title to what these fixtures were there would be no way to trace them, or demand payment before being sold. You may need to file through civil court. Do you have good information on the debtor? Have you sent him a demand letter? Even if you can find someone to file it criminally (which may not be possible as it is going to be hard to prove) you will have to serve due process.
 

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