Notorious con man James Ray Houston dead at 66

Notorious con man James Ray Houston dead

(Photo: northridge.patch.com)

Notorious con man James Ray Houston had died.  He was 66 years of age and died in prison.

Houston was known as “The Silver King”.

Other aliases included Sun Ray Star, J.Orlin Grabbe, Rex Rogers and he lived in a number of states separating people from their money.

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Wherever he went, people lost money.

In Nevada, during the 1970′s he was selling silver bullion to investors in Nevada, and he was running strong as a candidate for governor; until it was revealed that James Ray Houston was a con man.

He was known to live in Missouri, California and Costa Rica where he surrendered to authorities at the U.S. Embassy in January, 2011.

His last known scam was a lottery scam

Houston pleaded guilty in March, 2011 in Los Angeles federal court to felony mail fraud and received a 10 year prison term.

The long-running scheme offered victims `positions” in lotteries that would be grouped together to buy larger blocks of tickets, supposedly increasing the chance of winning.

The money taken from victims was not used to purchase tickets. The money was used to pay other victims, similar to a Ponzi scheme

The indictment against Houston and four other defendants alleged that more than 1 million solicitations were sent throughout the United States, offering chances of winning foreign and domestic lotteries.

A quick internet search will yield many results for Houston; many from victims who were angry that they had been conned out of the money by the well spoken Houston who had a larger than life personality.

Notorious con man James Ray Houston dead at 66 and he died in prison, at the Federal Correction Insitute at Terminal Island, while serving a 10 year prison sentence.

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