By Cathy Locke
clocke@sacbee.com
A former Florida man described as a "con artist" by a Placer County prosecutor has been sent to prison for a series of crimes, including having two women stalked while he was in prison.
While incarcerated in the Placer County jail, Christopher Allen Braun (left), 27, gave out the address and gate code number of a woman's Granite Bay home so his friends and former jail inmates could enter a gated community and deactivate the home's alarm system, according to a Placer County District Attorney's Office news release.
Prosecutor Charlotte Baillie said unwanted visits by Braun's friends have so shaken the owner that she is trying to sell the house.
According to the account provided by the District Attorney's Office, the crimes came to light on Jan. 12 when Braun pleaded no contest to felony charges of stalking and identity theft before Placer County Superior Court Judge Frances Kearney, who then sentenced him to two years and eight months in state prison.
Braun also pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of violating a restraining order and admitted that he had violated his felony probation.
Braun was on probation and serving a 300-day jail term in another case in which he had been convicted on three felony counts of theft, according to the news release.
Braun became acquainted with three women last summer when he began dating one of the women, who was 27.
In August, he and the woman moved into an apartment with an 85-year-old woman, and Braun paid the rent with a check on which he forged his girlfriend's name without her knowledge. A month later, Braun - who, officials said, often posed as a military intelligence officer and wore military clothing -- and his girlfriend moved in with the girlfriend's 51-year-old aunt, who lived in a gated community in Granite Bay.
After the girlfriend broke up with Braun, the women learned that he had used the aunt's personal information in an attempt to obtain credit cards.
Braun was convicted of the theft-related charges and sent to jail. But while his jail, he told fellow inmates that he was rich and owned the Granite Bay home. He gave them the code numbers to open the gates and deactivate the house alarm, telling the inmates and other friends that they could stay at the house and use the vehicles parked there.
His actions resulted in the felony charge of stalking.
Braun was charged with identity theft for conning a fellow jail inmate into giving him personal information, such as the inmate's Social Security number, driver's license number, birth date and mother's maiden name.
The prosecutor said Braun's former girlfriend has moved from the Granite Bay home and the aunt is trying to sell the house because of the visits by Braun's friends.
Call The Bee's Cathy Locke, (916) 321-5287.
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