By City News Service
A woman and three men who are accused of targeting four people with a "Latin Lotto'' scam are set to appear in court today, the District Attorney's Office said.
Ginna Lizeth Diaz, 25, and John Anderson Damian, 23, are scheduled to be arraigned in Los Angeles Superior Court.
Two other defendants, Leandro Alvarez Aguilar, 38, and Luis Ezekiel Fandino, 60, pleaded not guilty June 7.
The four are each charged with one count of grand theft of personal property and three counts of attempted grand theft of personal property.
The prosecution alleges that the crimes occurred between May 31 and June 5 in Los Angeles, Huntington Park, West Covina and Newhall.
If convicted as charged, the four could face a maximum of five years in county jail, according to the District Attorney's Office.
In so-called Latin Lotto scams, perpetrators tell strangers they've won a lottery but can't collect the winnings because they're not in the country legally, or because the lottery is in a Latin American country.
They then offer to give some of the winnings to the stranger, if he or she will help turn the ticket into cash and ask for "good faith'' money up front to be held until the deal is done. Amid the confusion of trying to cash out the lottery ticket, the mark is duped out of the good-faith money, and the con artist disappears.
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