Ferrari Guy Pleads ‘Nolo’ on All Counts to Bring Case to Close

Photo credit, AP/Ric Francis
IMAGE—Bo Stefan Eriksson’s change of appearance for the 10-day trial that ended in a hung jury last week gave way to prison garb when he pled out of three charges in Superior Court on Tuesday.

Photo credit, MSN/Frank Lamonea
TEAMWORK—Deputy District Attorneys Tamara Hall and Loren Naiman of the DA’s auto insurance fraud unit successfully prosecuted embezzlement and felony gun charges against the former Gizmondo video game company executive and sometime Formula One auto racer who was at the center of an international media maelstrom when he crashed a rare million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last February.

• Swede Is Expected to Serve One Year of Concurrent Three-Year Sentences and Then Be Deported

BY ANNE SOBLE

Four days after a Superior Court jury deadlocked in the case, the Swedish businessman and ex-felon, who was unceremoniously dubbed “Ferrari Guy” for his spectacular high-speed wreck of a rare, million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari in Malibu in February, pleaded no contest Tuesday to two counts of embezzlement and one count of felon-in-possession-of-a-gun.

The embezzlement charges stem from two sports cars, a second Enzo and a Mercedes McLaren SLR, that were leased from British financial institutions and brought to the United States without their permission before Bo Stefan Eriksson ceased making payments on the cars last year.

The surprise plea before Judge Patricia Schnegg came as the court was preparing for a separate second trial on the firearm charge and the retrial next month on a total of four counts of embezzlement and grand theft related to the two supercars that have since been returned to the UK.

The grand theft charges were dismissed as part of this week’s plea deal, which included admission of the allegation that the fraud exceeded $500,000 and packaged his earlier no contest plea on one count of misdemeanor DUI. Eriksson also acknowledged his 1994 conviction for fraud in Sweden.

Judge Schnegg immediately sentenced the 44-year-old to three years in state prison on each embezzlement count and six months on the DUI conviction. All sentences will run concurrently, and Eriksson will get credit for time served, which might mean that he could be out of jail as early as next November.

The former Gizmondo video game company executive was also ordered to pay $5000 in restitution. Another restitution hearing is set for Dec. 7, the date the retrial process was slated to start.

Eriksson’s Bel-Air home, estimated to be worth between $3.9 million and $5.2 million, has been seized and is being sold by a court-appointed receiver to pay the lessors of the cars and fines.

Eriksson’s high-profile defense team of Jim Parkman and William White of The Cochran Firm in Birmingham, Alabama, and Alec Rose, a Southern California criminal law specialist, indicated Tuesday afternoon that the pleading “was what Stefan wanted to do.”

Lead attorney Jim Parkman suddenly returned to Alabama last weekend, prompting some court observers to ask where the Ferrari case was heading after the jury deadlocked last Friday, 10-2, in favor of conviction.

The Cochran Firm recently filed a Notice of Appearance as counsel for Richard Scrushy in the post-trial phase of the high-profile HealthSouth case in Alabama that put the legal team in the media spotlight. Hearings in that case are getting under way.

Regarding the unexpected Eriksson plea deal, Parkman would only state, “Stefan came to an agreement [and he], the defense and the DA took a look at the case and where we were at.”

Although Eriksson had already turned down a plea offer, Parkman said, “Stefan had concerns overall, about both the cost and the energy of continuing the case. He wanted to move on, and ultimately be out of jail in a year. [He] believes that he can be successful in the future.”

Deputy DAs Tamara Hall and Loren Naiman served as the prosecutors. After the court session, Hall said that Eriksson “will be deported after he serves his prison term and will not be allowed to return to the United States.”

Hall summed up the District Attorney’s office’s contention that “justice was served by this plea. This is a fair resolution and is consistent with a majority of jurors who found him guilty on the embezzlement charges.”