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The car broke down the next day. When Sharon Simmons called to complain, Jason Mantel (who is really Daniel Smith) told her that the car had been repaired at Jackson Auto Garage in Fremont and suggested she take it back there. Simmons told Smith she wanted him to give her money back or to fix the car. Smith told her he did not have the money just then. She should, he said, pay for the car repairs, and then he would "make it right."
Simmons had already registered the car in her name, which cost $100. She took the car to the garage, where she paid $247 for repairs. Shortly afterward, the car broke down again. Again, the Simmonses demanded their money back from Smith. Again, he told her he would make payments and, again, they took the car back to the repair shop. This time, however, they were told that the car needed a new engine. The car stayed there for about a week.
When Simmons returned to retrieve the car, she was told that Jason had already picked it up. Simmons called the state Department of Motor Vehicles, told her story to an investigator, and asked for help. She didn't get it. Two weeks later -- now out $849 in cash and a car -- Simmons filed a police report against Jason Mantel.
Her car was already in the hands of another buyer.
On Aug. 2, 1988, shortly after Jason had nabbed the Dodge from the auto repair shop, Chantay Hernandez saw it parked at the corner of Mission Boulevard and Nursery Avenue in Fremont. It had a for-sale sign in the windshield. She was interested.
Hernandez gave Jason $300 in cash and agreed to make $100 payments in each of the next four months. She got the car and a bill of sale signed by Jason Marcell, who told her she would get the title when she finished paying for it.
While Hernandez was driving the car home, it began to lose water. Smoke began pouring from the engine. Hernandez called the answering service number Smith had given her but didn't hear from him for two weeks. Finally he called and arranged to take the car and have it repaired.
She never saw it again.
When Hernandez tried to register the car in her name, the DMV told her to contact the police. She did.
Meanwhile, Smith was busy selling other cars.
Between the time the Simmonses and Hernandez were buying and losing the same Dodge Omni, Vu Dung, a Fremont woman, was trying to sell a 1977 Cougar for her uncle, who didn't speak English. Jason approached and told her that he had a friend who was interested in buying a car. Jason offered to sell the Cougar to his friend. A deal was struck: Dung would get the first $700, and Smith would get anything above that. Smith took the car.
Dung never saw it again.
In August 1988, though -- while Hernandez was waiting to hear from Smith about her Dodge, and while Vu was waiting for the money for her uncle's Cougar -- Abel Arias saw the Cougar at the same corner where Hernandez had seen the Dodge. A sign in the window advertised the car for sale; the price was $1,100. Arias called the phone number and met Smith at the car. Arias made a $400 down payment and agreed to pay the rest in installments by the end of September. He got the car and accompanying paperwork signed by Jason Martel.
During the next few weeks, Smith collected a total of $670 from Arias, all but $30 of the total. But Arias still did not have the title to the car when Fremont Police impounded it, along with the Dodge Omni, both of which had been reported stolen by this time.
Smith would go on to sell at least two more cars in this way before he could be convicted of theft in Fremont Municipal Court.
"That was an incredibly unfair situation," Smith says. "To have been convicted of auto theft on my own cars was absurd."
Smith says that he "repossessed" the cars from the people he sold them to because they still owed him money. He used a variety of pseudonyms, he says, to skirt a state law that requires anyone who sells more than seven cars within one year to have a dealer's license.
"They were my cars, but they weren't in my name," he says. "I had the right to repossess those cars. What I should have done was called the police and told them I was going to repossess the cars first."
In the spring of 1989, Todd and Pamela Araujo saw a flier distributed by a company called Dream Home Developments; it advertised home remodeling services. They called the number on the flier and spoke to a man calling himself Daen Lodder, who is actually Daniel Smith, and who was on probation for the theft conviction in Fremont at the time.
During the next three months or so, the Araujos and Smith discussed plans to remodel the Araujos' house in Newark and negotiated a contract. Pamela Araujo remembers that they talked often and even got to be friends. Smith would sometimes come to the house to discuss plans and wind up watching a movie with them.
Police and court records tell the rest of the story this way:
Smith told the Araujos that Dream Home Developments was a new company, operating under the contracting license of one of its investors, An Trong Do of Spectrum Building & Painting Co., who was a general contractor and would be overseeing the project. The California Contractors License Board confirmed that the license belonged to Do and was in good standing. Do would later tell the court that Smith talked to him about the job, but that he turned it down. Smith, he said, got his license number off of his business card.
