A Santa Barbara County Superior Court judge sentenced Lee Michael Harrison to six years and four months in state prison on Friday for scamming two people out of $136,000.

Harrison was charged last year with 14 counts of grand theft by false pretenses, 14 counts of theft from an elder or dependent adult, and additional allegations in connection to two elderly victims.

He pleaded guilty to grand theft by false pretense, grand theft of personal property, dissuading a witness and extortion by threatening letter, according to the District Attorney’s Office.

He reportedly posed as a private investigator or someone with law enforcement connections who could help clients get law enforcement to fast-track cases, promised to deliver money to people who claim they never received it, and claimed to provide other services that he couldn’t.

“He was doing what scam artists do,” Anne Nudson, chief deputy district attorney, told Noozhawk. “He was lying very successfully about his job, about his past, about his connections, about his wealth — promising people things that were too good to be true.”

Nudson said Harrison targeted vulnerable victims, going after those in legal trouble and promising to use connections with law enforcement to pay people off or fast-track law enforcement actions.

“A lot of what he was doing is very common in what we see other con artists and scam artists doing,” Nudson said.

The District Attorney’s Office has been investigating the case since December 2024.

During Friday’s sentencing hearing, Harrison’s attorney, Christine Voss, argued that he did do the work he was paid for, by making numerous calls to attorneys and connecting clients to law enforcement agents. 

“The nature of the whole contract is extremely disturbing, to say the least,” Judge Pauline Maxwell said.

Harrison was also charged with second-degree commercial burglary and grand theft of personal property relating to a March 9, 2025, incident at The Webster, a clothing store at the Rosewood Miramar Beach hotel, where he used a bounced check to buy a gold and diamond necklace with a value of $37,981, according to Nudson.

Maxwell ordered Harrison to pay roughly $71,000 to one of his victims, $25,000 to another victim and about $37,000 in restitution to the Miramar. 

While the case was pending, a judge allowed Harrison out of custody on supervised release, meaning he had a GPS ankle monitor and regularly checked in with probation personnel. 

Harrison allegedly started a new scam in Ventura County and victimized multiple people out of thousands of dollars. That case is under investigation in Ventura County, according to Nudson.

“Unfortunately, which is of course what we were scared of, while he was out pending these charges, he continued to scam and victimize people,” Nudson said.

Harrison also fled from custody earlier this year.

Nudson also claims that Harrison lied to a judge about having to go to Florida to help his mother so he could remove the GPS ankle monitor. Instead of going to Florida, he went to Las Vegas, she said.

When the District Attorney’s Office learned that he was violating the agreement, it filed a motion to put him back in custody. Instead of appearing in court when he was supposed to, Harrison allegedly fled and was on the run from Feb. 25 to March 24, prosecutors said. 

Nudson said a District Attorney’s Office investigator was able to discover Harrison’s last known location through video footage and eventually located him in Bakersfield.  

The case highlights the larger issue of financial and elder fraud scams that regularly occur in Santa Barbara County and throughout the country, Nudson said. She warned that scams don’t always come from emails or phone calls. 

“If you meet someone you don’t know and they’re insinuating their way into your life and making claims that are too good to be true, it’s good to be careful about those things, too,” Nudson said. “Protect yourself and look out for your loved ones.”

It is not Harrison’s first fraud-related criminal case. He was convicted and sentenced to prison in a previous case.

In 2016, he was sentenced to 20 months in prison after posing as a celebrity chef and tricking girlfriends and business partners to invest in a tech software, according to news reports.