A yoga instructor was sentenced Monday to 7 1/2 years in federal prison for stealing more than $2.7 million from a Malibu ophthalmologist before the doctors death, then attempting to siphon millions more from the estate.
Anna Rene Moore, 41, was also ordered by U.S. District Judge Percy Anderson to pay $1 million in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.
Moore pleaded guilty in August 2023 to seven federal criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, conspiracy to engage in money laundering and engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity.
Her ex-boyfriend, Anthony David Flores, 48, was sentenced in June to nearly 16 years in federal prison for defrauding the mentally ill physician. Flores pleaded guilty last year in Los Angeles federal court to nine felonies, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy to engage in money laundering.
The couple were living in Fresno, where they operated a window cleaning business and yoga studio when they first met Dr. Mark Sawusch by chance at a Los Angeles-area ice cream parlor in June 2017.
Sawusch was a physician and successful investor who was worth more than $60 million, but who suffered from mental illness and had lost the ability to care for himself. He had recently been released from the hospital after several involuntary psychiatric stays, court papers show.
Within days of meeting Sawusch, Flores and Moore moved into his beachfront Malibu home — rent free — and slowly took control of his life by pretending to be his new best friends and caregivers, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.
In September 2017, after Sawusch suffered a severe mental breakdown resulting in his arrest and detention in Los Angeles County jail, Flores fraudulently induced him to sign powers of attorney granting Flores control over his finances.
From September 2017 to May 2018, Flores and Moore diverted the victims funds to their own bank accounts, isolated Sawusch from his family and longtime friends and provided him with drugs, including marijuana and LSD.
In the final days of the physicians life, Flores and Moore gave him LSD, which caused his mental state to severely deteriorate, federal prosecutors stated.
While Sawusch was under the influence of LSD, Flores changed the two-step authentication feature on the doctors $60 million online brokerage account after previously changing the phone number listed on the account from Sawuschs phone number to his own, according to the indictment in the case.
Four days before Sawuschs death and while he was still under the influence of the LSD, Flores initiated two $1 million wires from the physicians brokerage account to accounts that Flores controlled, including Flores personal bank account.
Flores and Moore then left the victim, who by this time was in mental distress and had evicted them from his home, prosecutors said. From a luxury hotel paid for with stolen funds, Flores and Moore watched the ophthalmologists deteriorating mental condition on video cameras installed throughout the Malibu beach house.
In May 2018, Sawusch died in his Malibu home at the age of 57. Following his death, Flores and Moore moved back into the Malibu home and withdrew large sums of money from the dead mans accounts. They also concealed information about the victims finances from his mother and sister, both of whom lived in Florida. This prompted the victims family to file a lawsuit, which uncovered the fraud.
In the ensuing lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court, Flores and Moore violated multiple court orders ordering them to return the funds stolen from the victim. They attempted to launder the fraudulent proceeds by funneling the money through multiple accounts to thwart Sawuschs estate and court-appointed receiver from recouping the money, prosecutors said.
The lawsuit was settled with Flores and Moore agreeing to repay the doctors estate $1 million, which they have so far failed to do, according to the U.S. Attorneys Office.