A swindler from San Diego, Alvin Pates, also known under the alias Al Noble, got slapped with a 41-month stretch in the clink today for his crafty bank and tax fraud antics, according to a release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Pates, age 54, wheeled and dealed his way to a high-flyin’ lifestyle, squandering money on a penthouse and luxury whips like Corvettes and Benzes, all paid with cash he swiped by duping banks with straw borrowers and doctored financial docs.
Pates, who sang like a canary in his plea deal, fessed up to starting his scam as early as July 2014 and keeping up the hustle through April 2020, where he lured churchgoers into his web of deceit to take out loans that he'd eventually splurge away, according to court documents. These folks handed over their names, social security digits, and credit so that Pates could bag loans and lines of credit, fattening his own pockets and leaving his pawns to flap in the breeze when debts came due.
Acting as both puppet master and puppet, Pates rigged the system by providing his minnows with inflated salary figures from shell companies under his control and when the banks rang up, he or his cronies would pick up, vouching for the bogus employment and earnings; in some cases, the scammer even posed as the borrowers on calls to financial institutions, tricking them to breeze through security checks.
The U.S. Attorney's Office was spitting mad about Pates’ sick game, saying he didn’t just lean on his church homies’ trust, "he preyed on it," and dragging Secret Service agents into a multi-year manhunt which wrapped when Pates got nabbed and the book got thrown at him, per statement from law enforcement officials; but his ill-gotten gains didn’t just hurt the banks and taxpayers—it stomped on the faith and finances of his bamboozled churchgoers, leaving many adrift in a sea of debt.
This trickster wasn't a one-trick pony either, he waltzed into false tax return territory where he and an accomplice whipped up fake returns in 2015 claiming a taxpayer raked in over half a mil and forked over just as much to Uncle Sam, scoring a big fat refund check before the IRS got wise and demanded it back, as detailed by the IRS Criminal Investigation honcho.
Now, Pates must make amends, at least to the tune of $45,500 in restitution to a victim who paid back those sham loans, while he cools his heels behind bars facing up to 30 years for bank fraud and another three for cookin’ up those phony tax returns. Restitution, fines, forfeiture and a potential million-dollar fine are all part of his tab, and that’s how justice gets served, San Diego style.
