Con-Artist Sang Gets 46-Month Sentence

Richard Sang, a "bust-out artist" who bilked restaurants and banks out of as much as $4.3 million, has received the maximum sentence of 46 months imprisonment.

U.S. District Judge William Dwyer said yesterday that he imposed the sentence because of "the absolute havoc wreaked by Mr. Sang in this scheme. . . . An unusual amount of harm, to put it mildly, was done."

Sang must also pay his victims restitution; the amount will be determined at a later hearing.

Sang forged financial statements and tax returns in order to receive hundreds of thousands of dollars in bank loans. He posed as a millionaire with the aid of a Ferrari, two Mercedes and an expensive Edmonds home. Over a six-year period, he orchestrated the purchase of 16 restaurants in four states.

The restaurants failed because Sang skimmed money from their operations and avoided paying substantial amounts of their vendors' bills, as well as federal and state taxes.

Sang moved his operations from Washington to Arizona to California and back to Oregon and Washington before an FBI and Secret Service investigation charged him with fraud.

Washington restaurants that Sang operated are: Jonathan's Restaurant in Kent; The Landing in Seattle; The Alderwood Terrace Restaurant in Lynnwood; the Crazy Lobster in Edmonds; the Bellevue Commons Seafood Bar and Grill in Bellevue; Marlin's Restaurant in Seattle; Meeker's Landing in Kent; Castaways in Renton; the Blue Max in Seattle and Finn McCool's in Bellevue.

Of these, only the Blue Max, now under different ownership, is still operating under the same name.

Sang worked under various aliases to buy the restaurants, and in some cases worked through two front men, Johnny McGill Jr. of Pendleton, Ore., and Richard Stallings, formerly of Kent, according to court records. McGill and Stallings were characterized as "his nominees, his puppets" by Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Wales.

McGill and Stallings, who face federal charges, had loaned Sang large amounts of money, and Sang persuaded them the only way to get their money back was to help him in his fraudulent activity, Wales said.