Fraud is given prison, ordered to pay money

A federal judge sentenced a convicted scammer who stole the properties of three men, after they traveled to the Philippines to meet him, to 14 years and eight months in prison for wire fraud.

U.S. District Judge Leslie E. Koba­ya­shi also ordered Henry Calu­cag Jr. to pay $246,141 restitution to the family of one of the men and to forfeit to the government $1,096,064. The restitution is the amount of money involved in the wire fraud. The forfeiture amount is the value of all of the property Calu­cag stole from the three men.

Calucag, 64, is already serving a 30-year state prison term for forging title transfer documents to steal some land on Kauai from John Elwin, who was murdered in the Philippines in 2006, and using Elwin’s credit cards to make purchases after Elwin was dead. Calu­cag will be eligible for parole in December 2029.

He will also complete the 14-year, eight-month sentence Koba­ya­shi handed down Thursday in December 2029.

In exchange for Calucag’s guilty plea to one count of wire fraud in 2011, the federal prosecutor agreed to a federal prison term that will match his state sentence and to allow him to serve both punishments at the same time.

Calucag and his girlfriend Debra Ana­ga­ran had been charged with multiple counts of wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and persuading others to travel overseas to defraud them. The pair’s other victims were Doug­las Ho and Arthur S. Young.

Elwin’s body was found on the side of a road in a province outside Manila in 2006 with gunshot wounds to the back of the head and to his back. Ho disappeared in 2004. Young disappeared in 1990.

All three men went to the Philippines to meet Calu­cag after they had given him money for what they thought were business deals or a condominium purchase.

The $246,141 is the amount Elwin wired to Calu­cag in the Philippines.

No one has been charged with Elwin’s murder or in connection with the disappearances of Ho and Young.

Anagaran pleaded guilty to mail fraud last year and was sentenced to just under a year in jail, time she had already spent in custody before pleading guilty. The charge involved her lying about her income to get $750,000 in mortgages for Young’s St. Louis Heights home. Ana­ga­ran also agreed to forfeit the Peter Street home to the government.

In 2007 a state jury found Calu­cag guilty of charges involving the theft of Elwin’s Kauai property and purchases made on his credit card.