By Laura Nesbitt
Mountain View Telegraph
Moriarty businessman Lee Obarr, also known as Donald Lee Condra, was found guilty on all eight counts by a jury in Mohave County, Ariz., on Tuesday, prosecutor Jace Zack said in a phone interview.
The felony charges include four counts of forgery, two counts of theft, one count of fraudulent schemes and artifices, and one count of computer tampering, Zack said.
Judge Steven Conn ordered that Obarr be taken into custody and held without bail at the Mohave County Jail in Kingman. Sentencing is set for Aug. 13.
"The range of his sentence could be three years to maybe a couple of dozen," Zack said.
Obarr, who was a former resident of Kingman, was employed by Sky City Mortgage in Moriarty up until several months ago, along with his wife, Elizabeth Obarr, also known as Elizabeth Strallow, branch manager for the company.
After a phone interview for a Feb. 14 story published in the Telegraph, Elizabeth Obarr called the reporter back and said that Sky City Mortgage officials had asked Lee Obarr to resign.
Terry Flanagan, chief investigator for the Mohave County District Attorney's Office, said he had been unable to locate any offices with personnel for Sky City Mortgage in any of several states.
The Sky City Mortgage city business license application, which was due in March, was not renewed by the Obarrs.
Elizabeth Obarr ran unsuccessfully for the Moriarty City Council earlier this year.
According to the summary of the investigative report, charges against Obarr include:
n Suspicion of theft of Mohave County computers that were taken from the Public Works building in Kingman, which were allegedly found at his mortgage company, Expedited Mortgage.
n Suspicion of forging a letter in the name of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and sending it to a contractor for development of property. FEMA representatives confirmed that the letter was a forgery.
n Suspicion of altering or forging three checks and depositing the funds into his account under the account name Expedited Networks. Checks returned from the banks show that they allegedly had been altered and deposited into the Expedited Networks account.
According to the Kingman Daily Miner, Obarr took the stand Friday and denied multiple allegations including:
n Taking four computers from the Public Works Department.
n Forging three checks and depositing them into the bank account of a business he owned, along with a letter from FEMA that gave permission for a developer to build in a flood-prone zone.
Apparently the jury did not believe his testimony.
A civil lawsuit against Condra is still pending.
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