White collar crimes usually consist of crimes of deception or theft perpetrated by professional people, as opposed to, say, crimes of force.  White collar crime can include such offenses as money laundering, extortion, embezzlement or bribery.  September 2009 has already seen two notable incidents of white collar crime. Los Angeles real estate broker Mario Raul Guevara, 30, was recently charged with four counts of grand theft of personal property, two counts of forgery and two more of failing to file tax returns.  Guevara, who pleaded not guilty on September 15th, is accused of making millions of dollars through shady real estate transactions and bribes he accepted from investors.  According to the Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney, Guevara forged a client's signature in order to sell a North Hollywood property to an accomplice, a sale which netted him almost $800,000.  If he is convicted Guevara faces up to 14 years in state prison. In another case of white collar crime, a former lawyer who practiced in California for more than 20 years pleaded guilty on September 15th to ten counts of “grand theft by embezzlement." The man was accused of misappropriating $150,000 from a client, as well as settling a case against the wishes of another client and embezzling the judgment money.  He was sentenced by a Los Angeles Superior Court Judge to serve three years in prison and to pay his victims more than $500,000 in restitution for his crimes. Tagged as: theft, white collar crime fraud theft laws