Palm Springs men plead guilty to embezzlement

Two Palm Springs men pleaded guilty today to embezzlingfrom two Palm Springs property owners and multiple vacation home renters andwere immediately sentenced to three years’ probation.

Michael Maloney, 52, and Matthew Wehling, 48, each pleaded guilty to twocounts of embezzlement — one felony and one misdemeanor. They wereoriginally charged with 15 counts of embezzlement. The remaining charges weredismissed, although they will pay restitution all the victims in the case,according to Deputy District Attorney Brian Bolland.

“They agreed to take responsibility for all those counts,” he said.

Bolland said Maloney and Wehling embezzled about $57,000 total from theproperty owners and 14 prospective renters, many of whom were from out ofstate. They embezzled roughly $14,000 from one property owner and $15,000 fromthe other, he said.

Regarding the prospective renters, “a lot of it was not gettingsecurity deposits back or people arriving in Palm Springs and the property notbeing available and not getting compensation from that,” Bolland said.

The 15 embezzlement charges spanned March 2009 to April 2011.

Palm Springs resident Kevin Corcoran testified at a preliminary hearingin June that Wehling and Maloney, who were friends, rented out his house fromJanuary to May 2010. They sent him checks from two bank accounts underWehling’s name, and they all bounced, Corcoran said.

“The mantra in (our) email communication was, `Hold on, the money willbe deposited very soon,’ ” he said.

Corcoran said he discovered that renters were told to wire funds toaccounts and were then told their reservation was canceled or they’d have torent at another property. He said as far as he remembered, he was never paidfor rental transactions done by Wehling and Maloney, and they kept bookingrenters for his house after he told them to stop.

“The checks started to bounce and I knew something was wrong,” he said.

Eventually, he went to the police and the District Attorney’s Office. Hesaid he did an Internet search on Maloney and found he was a convicted felonwith a “laundry list” of other cases.

“I was stunned,” he said.

Palm Springs police Sgt. Gustavo Araiza testified that the two bankaccounts under Wehling’s name were closed because of fraud alerts, and therewas “check kiting “ — writing a check for a value greater than the balancefrom one account in one bank, then writing a check from another account tocover the non-existent funds from the first account.

He talked to two people who said they had each submitted more than$2,000 to rent a residence, then were told it wasn’t available.

They were sent reimbursement checks, which bounced when they tried tocash or deposit them, the sergeant said.

Another person who stayed at the house were supposed to get part oftheir security deposit back, but the reimbursement check for that also bounced,he said.

Araiza testified that he found a “trend” of non-sufficient funds inboth bank accounts under Wehling’s name when he served search warrants on theaccounts.

Maloney’s attorney, Michael Rowlands, argued at the preliminary hearingthat his client didn’t havecontact with the victims related to half of the criminal charges, andalleged victims said information came from Wehling.

According to police, Maloney and Wehling posed as vacation rental agentsover a two-year period, showing clients online photographs of properties theyclaimed were for rent.

They would rent out homes owned by local residents using websites suchas “Homeaway” and “Vacation Rentals by Owner,” according to police.

Maloney also pleaded guilty today to one felony identity theft-relatedcount in a separate 2009 case, according to court records.