The job was a gamble: A last-minute birthday dinner for 20. Four courses. No time for a deposit, the caller said.
But Santa Monica private chef Laszlo Andras, 34, had taken a chance on such gigs before. So he trusted the friendly woman on the phone who called herself Kat.
Kat's check for $1,300 bounced, sending the Hungarian-born chef to police. They sent him to small claims court, he said; the court sent him back to police. Exasperated, the chef turned to the Internet.
"I became an angry person," he said, "and I tried to escape to a website."
Andras in November created www.superripoff.com, a site that connected about a dozen photographers, actors and would-be models who alleged that Kathleen Legaspi, or Kat, had swindled them out of thousands of dollars with false promises of entertainment jobs, photo work and fake Hollywood connections.
In March, Santa Monica police arrested Legaspi. And many are crediting Andras with helping to build the case.
"It was the first time I had seen anyone do that -- create a website warning people of a fraud suspect," said Santa Monica police Det. Maury Sumlin, a 20-year veteran who specializes in fraud and is investigating Legaspi. "It was very helpful to me, because it put me in contact with people and provided me with more evidence on my case."
Kathleen Tangcoy Legaspi, 28, is detained at Century Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood in lieu of $70,000 bail. In court last week, she pleaded not guilty to three felony counts of burglary, one count of grand theft and one count of passing a fictitious check, according to court documents. Police said the charges stem from Legaspi's alleged passing of a fraudulent check at a Santa Monica bank.
Legaspi also is charged in Beverly Hills with one count of grand theft of personal property, according to court documents. Castaway Studios' manager, Courtney Evans, said Legaspi took kickbacks while working as a casting recruiter for the company.
One of Legaspi's attorneys and her mother declined requests for comment; her other attorney could not be reached.
Andras' digital quest for justice first led him to www.ripoffreport.com, a site for reporting all kinds of alleged scams. There he found a complaint against a Kathleen Kafashian, the name Legaspi had given him.
The poster was identified only as David, a photographer from Toluca Lake. Andras searched the Internet and phone book for photographer Davids in Toluca Lake. Then he called them, one by one, until he found the right one.
