A Ventura County Superior Court judge ruled on Thursday there was sufficient probable cause to send Dennis Willingham to trial on 78 felony counts relating to how he and his wife, Brenda, operated and raised money for their strawberry businesses.

Judge Charles McGrath's decision came after a seven-day preliminary hearing during which Assistant District Attorney Eric Dobroth and District Attorney's Office investigator Greg Askay presented the stories of 39 groups of investors they contend the Ventura couple victimized between 1998 and 2001.

Prosecutors say that Brenda Willingham, with the knowledge and occasional direct participation of Dennis Willingham, fed potential investors a succession of lies about how the business operated in order to solicit thousands of dollars in working capital and promising returns that the couple knew they'd be unable to repay.

Dennis Willingham's court-appointed attorney noted that in several of these cases, investors dealt only with Brenda

Willingham or a middleman-and often never met Dennis Willingham.

Dobroth's expert witnesses said that didn't matter.

'They are equally culpable'

"They both worked for each other and on behalf of each other," said Bill McDonald, a securities fraud expert who was enforcement director of the California Department of Corporations between 1980 and 2001. "They are equally culpable."

Brenda Willingham pleaded guilty in May to about one-third of the charges against her and is due to be sentenced on Monday. Dennis Willingham has since contended that even if there were problems on the financial side of the business, he only ran the farming operations. Brenda Willingham was in charge of finances and dealing with investors.

Dennis Willingham's next court appearance is scheduled for Aug. 4, where a trial date could be set.

Dobroth counted at least two dozen occasions in which Dennis Willingham had conversations or other interaction with investors where he appeared familiar with the promissory notes and other agreements his wife had made.

Prosecutors amended their felony complaint after the couple was arrested in December to add three alleged victims who say Dennis Willingham was directly involved in soliciting them. The cases involved Dennis Willingham's sister-in-law, a longtime family friend in Georgia and the friend's daughter.

With those exceptions, only a handful of investors in Sunshine Fresh Produce and Willingham Farms say they actually knew Brenda or Dennis Willingham very well before deciding to draw from savings, borrow against an IRA, or take out a second mortgage to invest in the couple's strawberry businesses.

But they quickly came to trust the grandmotherly produce broker and her slightly younger, seemingly pleasant farmer husband nearly as much as the friend, relative or business associate who first introduced them.

Abusing trust

The prosecution says the couple regularly abused that trust.

"These victims were very vulnerable,".said McDonald, arguing that under California law, the Willinghams' business promissory notes and limited partnership agreements were securities that never would have met state certification standards. "They were people who had no business being in this highly risky, speculative investment."

Victims say they lost more than $8 million, not including the millions of dollars in profits the Willinghams appeared to guarantee in writing.

"This is one of the most egregious and shameful frauds I have ever encountered,".McDonald said, contending that the alleged victims were only the tip of the iceberg. More than 600 creditors, most of them investors, were listed in the Willinghams' unsuccessful 2001 bankruptcy filing.

Testimony suggested most investors considered themselves part of a select group in a small but thriving family business.

'Pretty much no risk'

"She told us there was pretty much no risk," testified Camarillo resident Crystal Ray, recalling Brenda Willingham telling her in 1998 that she had been in business 18 years and had only around 60 investors at the time. "She said the worst case scenario was that we'd get our seed money back."

Ray eventually learned that before marrying Dennis Willingham, Brenda Willingham had filed for bankruptcy in 1994 when an earlier strawberry-brokering business failed.

"She told us she had never filed bankruptcy and she never would," Ray recalled. "We were very comfortable with her. She was a very nice lady."

To deliberately muddy the paper trail, prosecutors contend the Willinghams asked to be paid in cash when possible, and rapidly converted personal checks, cashiers' checks and wire transfers to cash. They also kept few business records about how cash was spent.

Department of Corporations examiner Don Rasmussen said his analysis of Willingham bank statements showed instances where the same day money was transferred by wire into an account by one investor, it would be quickly transferred to another investor, evidence a Ponzi scheme was taking place.

Checks usually were cashed at an Oxnard check-cashing shop where the Willinghams had become such steady customers that they received discounted fees on their larger checks.

Hacienda Casa de Cambio owner Nina Duarte, who provided extensive records to prosecutors, testified that for a long time she accepted the Willinghams' explanation that both strawberry-brokering and farming businesses needed to be largely cash-based.

Brenda Willingham couldn't afford the three-day delay a bank would place on most check deposits, Duarte recalled her saying.

While mentioned only briefly in the preliminary hearing, prosecutors during the trial are expected to put greater focus on Dennis Willingham's gambling. The Willinghams in their bankruptcy petition listed $473,808 in gambling winnings in the prior two years, but provided conflicting documentation about profits and losses.