Santa Clara Co.: Silicon Valley Rental Scammer Sentenced

A 62-year-old Menlo Park woman with a history of scamming Silicon Valley landlords to live rent-free was sentenced to more than two years in jail last week, according to the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.

Rebecca Violette posed as an affluent investor and lied about her income and past evictions on rental applications. Violette, who also identified herself as Rebekah Violette on rental applications, wrote bad checks for the first and last months rent and then squatted in expensive properties without paying rent, according to the district attorney's office.

Violette was sentenced to 28 months. She'll serve one year in jail and one year and four months under mandatory supervision or probation.

Violette has been prosecuted and convicted several times in the past decade for conducting the same scam, serving multiple sentences in custody.

She was convicted of three counts of grand theft, three counts of passing bad checks and one count of attempted theft. In the count of attempted theft, a landlord refused to rent their property to Violette after searching her name on the internet and learning about her scamming history.

"Anyone could fall victim to a well-honed scheme," said Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen. "We encourage careful background checks before renting to anyone."

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