Conman Christopher Woods was jailed for four years in California. Source: News Limited
Conman Christopher Woods told people he was the world's greatest jockey. Source: News Limited
AN Australian conman who claimed to be the world's greatest jockey has been sentenced to four years in a federal prison in California and ordered to repay more than $3 million for his part in a mortgage fraud scheme.
Christopher J Woods, 53, originally from Sydney, lived for years in the US as a scam artist who resided in exclusive hotels. He paid for his lifestyle by persuading people to part with their money on the promise he had the inside running on fixed horse races all over the world.
Woods, who promoted himself on his website as “the world's most perfect jockey”, was for a brief while a Randwick stablehand.
Woods became involved with two Californian brothers, Henrik and Hamlet Sardariani, who scammed investors in mortgage deals.
In one of the scams, they told a lender that they needed a temporary loan to extend an existing escrow - a special trust fund that had been set up for the purchase of the hospital.
They claimed they had already put $4m in the escrow fund and needed time to secure further bank loans to buy the hospital. They backed up their presentation with falsified documents, but the property did not exist.
“In fact, as Woods and Henrik Sardariani both admitted, they planned to use the lender’s money to fund bets on horse races that Woods claimed he could fix,” said the FBI, which investigated the case.
In the scam, the victim wired $2.5m the account of another accomplice, Wanda Tenney, who managed what was a supposedly secure escrow account.
Tenney then wired $1.9m to an account in Hong Kong, which was controlled by Woods, who then ripped off his fellow scammers.
“Woods then took the $1.9 million for himself by arranging for it to be wired to a bank account in Los Angeles, which he had opened for himself just one day before the money had first been sent to Hong Kong,” said the FBI.
“Once the money was in his sole control, he used it to pay for hotels, fancy restaurants, and luxury goods.”
This was just one of Woods’ many scams. In May, News Limited published an investigation into Woods’ activities, detailing how he left Australia three decades ago after running foul of the Sydney racing community and certain colourful characters he hung out with.
In the early 1980s, after telling lies about fixed races, Woods spent three days being chauffeur-driven around Sydney in a gold Rolls-Royce. Unfortunately for him he was bound and gagged in the boot and the chauffeurs were Sydney criminals Adrian Kay and “Bob the Basher” Rakich, whom Woods had misled about the outcome of a race.
Every so often Rakich would drag Wood out of the boot, give him a belting and stuff him back in the boot of the Roller.
Woods also hurt small investors. A Californian woman, who did not wish to be named, recounted how Woods took her for $50,000 in 2010.
The woman, C, thought she was buying part-ownership of a Singapore-based racehorse. “He said he needed $2m for the trainer and all this stuff,” she said. “He produced documents stating he had $1.5m already from investors.”
In this case, C was introduced to Woods by someone she trusted. She said she met him at a restaurant at LA’s Ritz-Carlton, where he impressed her with his Black Amex.
She said she had some cash after her divorce settlement and was desperate for more money so she could buy a house. She heard Woods was a conman and asked for her money back. It was too late. He had used $27,000 of her money to pay off his Amex.
Woods came undone when he hired an LA designer, Josh Lange, to work on his web site.
Lange told News Ltd he would sit about the lobby of the Montage Hotel in Beverly Hills with Woods, where he met his victims. Lange became disturbed. “After he’d meet them, he’d say, ‘This little c--t’s giving me $75,000 for a horse race.’”
Lange described how he became a witness to Woods’ malevolence and began started secretly blogging about Woods to warn others off. The word started going out and Woods’ world began to close in.
“The last time I saw him he was staying roach hotel,” said Lange.
“They repo’d his car, his Amex got shut off and he literally had no money. I bought him McDonalds, gave him a ride and dropped him off at a bus stop. He was piss-broke. He was staying in hotel lobbies by day because he had nowhere to stay.
“It happened so quick. The blog had a lot to do with it.”
Woods was finally arrested in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 2011, after he attempted credit card larceny on a Greenwich resident; the FBI had him arrested and indicted him on the hospital scam.
Judge Virginia Phillips also ordered Woods to pay $3,510,000 in restitution to victims of the scheme and to pay a $10,000 fine. It is not clear whether he has that sort of money.
Henrik Sardariani, the organiser of the fraud scheme, was sentenced in August to 10 years in prison and Hamlet Sardariani, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy and tax evasion, is serving six and a half year in federal prison.
Wanda Tenney, who has pleaded guilty to conspiracy, will be sentenced next year.
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