A 79-year-old Orange County man lost his yacht, his Irvine home and nearly $2 million, and on Wednesday the Hawaii man who conned him out of it all was ordered to federal prison.
John Tamahere McCabe, 42, of Kailua, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,814,000 in restitution. Prosecutors say he pulled off a long-running scheme that stripped the victim of his yacht and saddled his Irvine condominium with loans the victim never authorized, ultimately leaving the elderly man homeless.
How prosecutors say he pulled it off
According to federal prosecutors, McCabe used bogus paperwork to transfer ownership of the victim's yacht into his own name, then quietly pocketed the proceeds from the eventual sale.
As laid out in a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office, Central District of California, McCabe also persuaded the victim to place a million‑dollar Irvine condominium into an LLC that McCabe controlled. Once that was done, prosecutors say, he caused $1 million in loans to be taken out against the property without the victim’s informed consent.
Those loans later went into default, and the home was sold at a foreclosure sale. Prosecutors calculate the victim’s total losses at about $1,814,000. The earlier guilty plea and scheme were detailed when the case first surfaced last spring.
Sentence, restitution and reaction
On Wednesday, the FBI’s Los Angeles office announced on X that McCabe had been sentenced to 48 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $1,814,000 in restitution. The post identified McCabe by name and framed the sentencing as the close of a case that left an elderly Irvine man without both his yacht and his home.
Local coverage and wire reports indicate the FBI investigated the fraud with help from the Irvine Police Department, while the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Santa Ana handled the prosecution. Earlier reports noted that McCabe pleaded guilty in May to a single count of wire fraud, setting the stage for this week’s sentencing.
What the law says
Wire fraud under federal law carries a statutory maximum of 20 years in prison, although actual sentences typically depend on the dollar amount of the loss and the defendant’s role, as calculated under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. The full legal text and penalty provisions are available at 18 U.S.C. § 1343 via the Legal Information Institute.
If you or someone you know is age 60 or older and has been targeted for financial fraud, the National Elder Fraud Hotline is available at 1-833-FRAUD-11 (1-833-372-8311), according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Authorities are encouraging anyone with information related to this case to contact the FBI’s Los Angeles field office or the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Santa Ana.
