Lucius Foster Convicted of Bilking Elderly

Jodie Foster’s 89-year old estranged father, Lucius Foster, is in jail after being convicted of a slew of grand theft charges and nine counts of contracting without a license.

Los Angeles Deputy City Attorney Don Cocek, who called Foster the “Bernie Madoff of Sherman Oaks,” said during the trial that Foster used war stories, blatant lies and personal charm to bilk his victims of some $130,000. He talked at least 21 elderly and/or low-income residents into giving him $5,000 down payments to build them 2,000-square-foot modular homes made from 40-foot Chinese shipping containers.
Cocek also said that more people have come forward to claim they were victims of this scam, but it has not been decided whether to try Foster in those cases. As it stands now, he faces a sentence that could be as much as 25 1/2 years in county jail.

Foster represented himself in the case, attempting to convince the jury that it was not a scam, but a genuine plan to provide a new housing option that he would have eventually made good on.

He’s going to get his wish that he be sentenced as soon as possible on Friday, December 9th. He wants to serve his time and pay back the people he took deposits from. But he’s almost 90 years old and uh … 25 years?

Foster confirmed that he is estranged from his famous daughter, but what that had to do with anything, we have no idea. “If you had a bad guy in your family, wouldn’t you draw walls around him?” Foster said.