Charges Dismissed in Ojai ‘Impostor’ Case

An alleged con artist who claims to be an innocent 17-year-old teen-ager won the first round of his latest legal battle Friday when a Municipal Court judge dismissed four felony counts against him.

But prosecutors said they will refile the charges against David Michael Murray, 31, who is being held without bail in the Ventura County Jail on charges of parole violations in California and Texas.

A preliminary hearing on the California parole charge, stemming from a 1980 auto theft conviction in Ventura, has been set in Ventura Superior Court for next Friday.

Murray, who calls himself Shi Stone and says he is the son of an Air Force colonel wounded in the Panama invasion, was cleared Friday of three counts of theft by fraud and one of obtaining a controlled substance.

Officials had charged Murray with two counts of defrauding Ken and Dorothy Johnson of room and board expenses and $145 in checks used to open a bank account and pay for a cooking class and driving instruction fees at an Ojai high school, where he enrolled as Shi Stone during a four-week stay with the Ojai family.

The other two charges stemmed from claims by a pharmacy owner that he was defrauded of a blood coagulant worth $1,600, and that the coagulant was a controlled substance.

The Johnsons had agreed to be Shi Stone’s legal guardians and enroll him in school after receiving phone calls from a man who claimed to be an attache at the U.S. Embassy in Panama. The alleged impostor was arrested on March 1 after school officials became suspicious of his identity.

During Friday’s hearing, Dorothy Johnson testified that she had seen her husband once give Murray $20 in cash and that she gave Murray $1 every day “to buy a soda in school” to complement the packed lunch she prepared every day.

She also said the family spent more than $600 in food and utility bills as a result of Murray’s stay.

Dean Giser, owner of The Medicine Shoppe, said he agreed to fill Shi Stone’s prescription in exchange for forthcoming payments from a federal agency, or from money that Shi Stone’s father would be mailing him from Panama.

Judge Thomas Hutchins ruled that even though Murray might have lied about his age, the prosecutor had failed to prove that money was the reason he was welcomed into the Johnsons’ house.

“He had a colorful story. I haven’t heard evidence that he said he was in need or had no money,” Hutchins said.

As for the alleged prescription drug fraud, Hutchins said, the prosecutor had only established that Murray took the medicine, promised to pay for it, and still has not.

“That occurs in ordinary commerce every day,” Hutchins said. “If that constitutes fraud, then every merchant who defaults on a payment would be guilty of it too.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. Stacey Ratner moved to dismiss the fourth count of fraud after learning that the blood coagulant was not a controlled substance.

But, the prosecutor said, she was disappointed with Hutchins’ decision on the other fraud charges. “I think the judge applied a higher standard of proof than what is normally required,” she said.

Ratner said she would refile the charges.

Murray, who was quoted by police detectives as challenging them to “try to pin me with whatever you can” hours after being arrested, remained serious during the trial. He never looked at the Johnsons during the trial and was not called to testify.

“He can make all the challenges he wants,” Ratner said. “I don’t think he’s going to get away with it.”