Fraudster, 60, Disappears During Arapahoe County Jury Trial

CENTENNIAL, CO – Aurora police and Arapahoe County sheriff's deputies are still searching for a 60-year-old man who reportedly cut off his GPS ankle shackle and disappeared while his jury trial was held last week.

Larry McGee has an active warrant out for his arrest. Colorado authorities are also working with Dallas police, because he has ties in that city, Terri Combs of the Arapahoe County District Attorney's office said.

McGee was accused of conning his landlord, as well as businesses and contractors, out of more than half-a-million dollars. An Arapahoe County jury met Sept. 14 to convict McGee, whose trial had been stalled and delayed for four years, the Arapahoe County District Attorney's office said.

But McGee had skipped town, violating his supervised pretrial release, which was a condition of bond.

The jury found him guilty, in his absence, of all of 21 counts including theft, identity theft and writing bad checks.

The case began in January, 2014, when a landlord told the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office that tenant McGee had not paid rent for two years on his business property at 12656 E. Jamison Place, in Englewood. McGee had also not paid any of the contractors he hired to "perform upgrades and enhancements to the property," prosecutors said. The total amount owed by McGee was more than $500,000.

McGee had a previous felony theft conviction, prosecutors said. He was accused of signing contracts with the landlord and tradespeople, but having his checks bounce. The court heard how he "made excuses and payments were never made," the DA's office said. Prosecutors said he also "impersonated a local attorney, drafted forged letters to the victim under the attorney’s letterhead, and gave the victim the forged deposit slips and wire transfer records in order to remain a tenant and keep the scheme going."

When he's apprehended, McGee could be sentenced to more than 48 years in prison, the DA's office said.

“McGee did not perpetrate this scheme to get money — McGee financially ruined a 65-year-old man and tricked numerous people into providing services and supplies for the sole purpose of making people think he was a wealthy businessman so they would treat him as someone special,” said Senior Deputy District Attorney Steve Fauver, who prosecuted the case, in a statement. “None of the victims is likely to make a deal with only a handshake ever again, and that is truly a shame.”

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