Arrest warrants issued for former owner and employees of Anderson RV dealership

Arrest warrants were issued April 2 for the former owner and three former employees of an Anderson RV dealership on charges they bought more than $300,000 in trailers, fifth-wheels and RVs from customers but never paid them.

The former workers at R&R RV Sales committed fraud, embezzlement and criminal conspiracy when they took more than 80 vehicles on consignment from customers but failed to pay for them, said Armando Botello, a spokesman for the California Department of Motor Vehicles.

Many of the victims were seniors, Botello said. DMV law enforcement officers began their investigation on Oct. 21, 2007, after customers complained, Botello said.

"There's no excuse for this," said Erin Dervin, a Shasta County deputy district attorney. "It's a theft. It's a theft of a lot of money."

The three employees - Dwight Malcolm Gaylor, 33, of Anderson; Glenn Richard Hartley, 52, of Redding; and Staci Gaylor Rutledge, 34, of Cottonwood - were charged with up to 12 counts of conspiracy to commit a crime, according to a felony criminal complaint filed in Shasta County Superior Court.

The owner, Robin Gail Moberg, 51, who has addresses in Loleta, south of Eureka, and Oak Run, also was charged with sending a $14,000 check to a client, but not having enough cash in the bank to cover it, according to the complaint.

Dervin said the arrest warrants for Moberg, Hartley and Gaylor set bail at $100,000 each, while Rutledge's bail was set at $25,000.

Dervin said she wasn't sure if the suspects had been arrested or had turned themselves in to authorities. They weren't listed as inmates on the Shasta County Sheriff's Web site on the evening of April 2 and they couldn't be reached for comment.

Dervin said that it's likely that several victims didn't know they were criminally defrauded, but many have filed civil lawsuits.

Mike Viscaino, 75, of Redding was one of them.

Judge Pro Tem Tim Pappas ruled in favor of Viscaino in 2007 after he sued Moberg and sought $4,500, according to electronic Shasta County Superior Court records.

Viscaino said he sold the trailer to the dealership on consignment earlier that year and expected to receive a check for $4,500. He paid $400 upfront in consignment fees, he said.

"They kept switching people around on me and they kept saying it (a check) would be mailed to me," Viscaino said. "It was never mailed to me."

The dealership eventually sold the trailer to someone else, Viscaino said.

Such stories have flooded Dervin's office. She has little sympathy for the dealership.

"If it happened one time, it might have been something that could have been resolved," Dervin said. "But Mrs. Moberg and her associates were unwilling to make good on promises they'd made."

R&R RV Sales was granted a state occupational license in 2003 to sell new trailers, new RVs and new motor homes, according to the DMV's Web site. The dealer went out of business in July 2007, the site says.

The dealership's license has been suspended, according to the California Secretary of State's Web site.