Yuba judge rejects $9,500 request for pawned ring

A Colusa woman won't receive the $9,500 she wanted for a diamond ring she said a Sacramento man was to sell back to her after they got the ring and her other jewelry out of hock from a Marysville pawn shop, a Yuba County Superior Court judge ruled Monday.

Judge Stephen Berrier said he found Roy Sayles account more credible than that of Jeannie F. Lee Winters, 66, who contended she provided Sayles the ring to hold for the money Sayles loaned her to get other jewelry back from the pawn shop.

Sayles, 77, said Winters told him she would rather he have the ring than the pawnbroker possess it.

The two met on a chatline and were friends, they said in court, although that has ended.

"I'm sorry I ever got mixed up with her," Sayles, a widower, said after the hearing. Winters, a retired nurse, shares that sentiment about Sayles.

"I should have given him an IOU and kept the ring," the Colusa woman said after the court hearing.

She said her jewelry was at the pawn shop because she was trying to help her brother who had been diagnosed with cancer.

Winters cried in the Marysville courtroom while recounting what she said was Sayles bragging about using the resized ring to entice women into his bed.

No, said Sayles.

"I have no idea where she dreamt that up," said the self-employed Sacramento man, whose business interests include commercial real estate.

He said he sold the ring several years ago to a fellow Elks Lodge member in Sacramento.

Winters said in court she had bought the ring after winning $25,000 at a bingo hall. She said she pawned the ring in 2004, which Berrier noted in his ruling. A two-year statute of limitations cover oral contracts, the judge said.

Berrier also cautioned about such contracts, which Winters said involved Sayles agreeing to sell her back the ring.

"If you don't get it in writing," the judge said in court, "you just take your chances."

CONTACT Ryan McCarthy at rmccarthy@appealdemocrat.com or 749-4780. Find him on Facebook at /ADrmccarthy or on Twitter at @ADrmccarthy.