Closing arguments began Monday in the Santa Barbara County Superior Court trial against private investigator Craig Case, who has been accused of embezzling nearly $700,000 from a former client. 

Before his arrest in July 2023, Case was a bit of a local celebrity, appearing in his own self-produced television show, “The Inn Crowd.” He was a private investigator and a member of numerous local boards and commissions, including the Santa Barbara Police Foundation, Santa Barbara City College and United Boys & Girls Clubs of Santa Barbara County.

The Santa Barbara County District Attorney’s Office charged Case with more than four dozen felony counts of grand theft, financial elder abuse, and money laundering.

The victim of the alleged theft is 94-year-old Constance McCormick Fearing, who died in 2022. Fearing was a member and heiress of the McCormick family, who were the original owners of Montecito’s Riven Rock estate.

Case appeared in court on Monday wearing a gray sports coat and using a wheelchair. 

Throughout the trial, the jury heard from witnesses and subject matter experts, including Nancy Coglizer, Fearing’s longtime assistant and bookkeeper, law enforcement investigator Eric Davis, and Carl Knutson, a former special agent for the Internal Revenue Service. 

Coglizer was accused of colluding with Case, and she pleaded guilty last year to elder financial abuse and conspiracy to commit elder financial abuse.

Prosecutor Brian Cota began his closing arguments by setting up the relationship between Case and Coglizer, explaining that for years the two only saw each other briefly a few times a year at Fearing’s estate. However, he said, that changed after Coglizer’s mother died in 2018. 

Cota reminded the jury of Coglizer’s trial testimony in which she admitted she was in a bad mental place after her mother’s death and started heavily drinking. 

She testified that after her mother’s death, she and Case began having a more personal relationship, calling each other on the phone and meeting up for drinks. 

Then, two months after Coglizer became the power of attorney for Fearing’s estate, Case asked if Fearing had any extra money for a short-term loan for his business. 

“Like any good con man, you have to have patience,” Cota said. “It must have killed him to wait two months.” 

Cota said that it went on for months, with Case routinely asking Coglizer for a short-term loan, without making any effort to pay back the loans. Coglizer wrote 104 checks to Case amounting to $690,000 from October 2018 to April 2021, Cota explained. 

Cota showed the jury text messages between Case and Coglizer in which Coglizer began asking for the money back, saying she was being investigated for elder abuse. She testified that Case started ignoring her, canceling plans, and telling her he was in meetings when she tried to reach him. 

When Coglizer pleaded guilty to conspiracy and financial elder abuse charges, she made an open plea to the court, meaning she didn’t make a deal with prosecutors in exchange for her testimony. Her fate will be decided by a judge at the end of the trial.

Cota also showed the jury evidence that Case would use the money to get cashier’s checks, then deposit the checks into his mother’s account. He then would write himself a check the next day for the same amount. 

Case’s defense attorney, George Steele, painted a very different picture of Case, arguing that he wasn’t some mastermind con man but instead a dreamer who made some bad business decisions.

“What you have is a dreamer with a failed dream,” Steele said. “This is the story of a dreamer that got in over his head with debt.”

Steele said it was nothing more than a bad loan agreement, arguing that all Case did was ask for a loan, which Coglizer gave him. He argued that there was no conspiracy between the two and no ill intent. 

“​​In this country, we abolished debtor prisons in the 1960s. I’m asking you to not take us back,” Steele said to the jury. “It’s a loan that needs to be repaid. There was no deception.”

Steele argued that Case was using the loans for his television show until he could get sponsorships. 

Steele shifted the blame toward Coglizer, arguing that she willingly gave Case the money, leaving Fearing to deal with poor living conditions, and that she changed her story to try to stay out of jail.

Jury deliberations began Monday afternoon and are scheduled to continue Thursday.