Jail slam for van scam duo

A father and daughter who swindled almost $150,000 from members of their East Indian community were sentenced to jail Monday in Sutter County Superior Court.

Harpreet Kaur, 23, and her father, Baljit Singh Samra, 49, talked Live Oak farm worker and ice cream truck driver Rajdeep Ginda into investing $129,000 in a nonexistent van transportation company. Deputy District Attorney Anu Chopra called it a "van scam."

"They took $129,000. They didn't consider that I have little children," said Ginda, speaking through an interpreter.

"What they did to us was really wrong. They should not be able to do that to anyone else," said Ginda, who was in danger of losing the family's home after taking out a second mortgage so he could give money to Kaur and Samra.

Judge H. Ted Hansen sentenced Kaur to a year in jail and her father to nine months. Kaur was the instigator of the plot, according to Hansen and Chopra.

Kaur spent the money on clothing, jewelry and a vehicle, said Chopra.

"Miss Kaur, you are a thief. I don't know any other way to put it," said Hansen.

"You did it for your personal pleasure. You found two easy marks," he said, referring to Ginda and an elderly Yuba City couple, Ajit and Nirnal Hansi, who lost about $17,000.

"All that I've seen cries out for prison," the judge said.

Kaur and Samra avoided prison by pleading guilty to burglary and theft charges and agreeing to repay $60,000 to Ginda. Hansen ordered them to repay another $72,000 to Ginda during their probation.

Ginda kept the family home with the help of his father, Don Ginda.

The Hansis recovered their money.

Kaur and Samra offered to help the non-English speaking couple refinance the mortgage on their house and took them to a Bank of America branch in Marysville. The papers they signed actually were for a student loan, and they began receiving large credit card bills.

At the time, Nirnal Hansi, almost 70, was working at a Burger King restaurant at Sacramento International Airport.

"We believed in them. We trusted them and they cheated us," Ajit Hansi told the court. "We have suffered for three years. What they did to us was very bad."

Kaur and Samra invoked the name of God in their schemes and preyed upon victims unfamiliar with the U.S. financial and judicial systems, said Chopra.

The crimes were a blow to the sense of trust in Yuba-Sutter's East Indian community, she said.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Rob Young at 749-4710 or at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com