GILROY—A Gilroy woman has been accused of pocketing money from customers who trusted her to wire it to family in Mexico—and police say she has admitted using the money to run her flower shop.
Leticia Gonzalez Sandoval, 44, told police she took tens of thousands of dollars from customers then funneled the cash into her business, a downtown flower shop called Creaciones Lety at 7259 Monterey Street.
Sandoval retained an attorney and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy last month, making it difficult for victims—many of whom speak only Spanish and have questionable immigration status—to recoup their losses, according to legal experts.
Concerned authorities were not following through, multiple families contacted the Dispatch about their plight.
But the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office is reviewing three Gilroy cases—a combined theft of more than $26,000—and could make a determination about whether to prosecute as early as next week, according to a spokesman.
During an interview with police, Sandoval said she ran a money transfer business from her office for the past 12 years. After questioned about allegations of theft, Sandoval admitted feeling “choked by all the people she currently owed money to,” Gilroy Police Department Officer Nestor Quinones wrote in a March 18 report obtained by the Dispatch.
When one Gilroy woman, who preferred to remain anonymous, gave Sandoval $18,000 in cash in December 2014, the businesswoman told her she would send the money in installments when the peso exchange rate rose.
But after speaking with family in Mexico, the alleged victim learned that nearly three months later only $3,000 had arrived out of the money she and her husband gave Sandoval. The remaining $15,000 in the wire transferred had been cancelled, the wire agencies told her.
She called Sandoval and visited the flower shop to find out what happened and the businesswoman promised to repay her, according to the Gilroy woman.
But Sandoval told police a different story.
When questioned by Quinones, Sandoval said customers entrusted her the money to “run her store” and “send payments when she had the means or the peso exchange rate rose,” the police report reads.
“I told her that (the Gilroy woman) didn’t have the same understanding of the agreement and wanted her money back,” Quinones wrote.
One of the employees at the flower shop, which shares the building with a hair salon, told police she “had a feeling” Sandoval was scamming people out of their money, according to police reports.
Maria Rodriguez, of Gilroy, said she and her husband gave Sandoval more than $9,000 in January to send to Mexico. Not one peso ended up in the hands of their family, Rodriguez told the Dispatch.
When they called the wire service agencies that would have transferred the money, employees said the transactions had been cancelled.
Sandoval retained the services of San Jose-based attorney Deok Kim, who sent a letter to the Gilroy woman who preferred to remain anonymous demanding she stop contacting his client—and that she had filed for bankruptcy, which in most cases automatically stays some collection actions against the debtor.
“Do not contact her in any manner,” reads the letter signed by Kim. “Please communicate directly with this office if you wish to discuss her matter.”
When asked if Sandoval had any intention of paying back the alleged victims in the case, Kim declined to comment. He stated that the victims “are not allowed” to speak to the media and should not have contacted this newspaper about the case, citing the bankruptcy proceeding.
A May 7 hearing in United States Bankruptcy Court is scheduled at 10 a.m. at the U.S. Federal Building in San Jose. According to federal law, all individual debtors—including victims—must provide government-issued photo identification and provide proof of a social security number to take part in the hearing and make a claim against Sandoval.
“I bet you a million dollars this money is all gone and nobody will ever see it again—and that there won’t be much to recover,” said California Rural Legal Assistance Regional Director Gretchen Regenhardt, whose agency provides civil law services to migrant workers.
“If she’s declared bankrupt, she probably owes lots of people for lots of things and chances are this money is just gone,” she said.
Had Sandoval not filed for bankruptcy, Regenhardt said the CRLA would be able to help the victims get their money back.
But why go to a hair salon and flower shop to transfer such significant amounts of money?
“Many of them (Spanish-speaking immigrants) come from places where there’s more of an informal economy, where somebody does it all—like cut hair and wire money,” Regenhardt said. “There’s a mistrust of more formal institutions in some ways, particularly if their immigration status is questionable and they don’t want to deal with anybody too official.”
