Napa man accused in $200,000 wine theft

Allegations include selling expensive Bordeaux cheap on Internet

By MARSHA DORGAN
Napa Valley Register

An criminal complaint has been filed against Kevin Hall of Napa, charging that he and two Sonoma County men embezzled nearly $200,000 worth of high-end red wines, including a Bordeaux-style blend from Mount Veeder.

The wines were produced by Jackson Family Wines, part of Sonoma County-based Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates.

Arrest warrants were issued out of Sonoma County Superior Court for Hall, 29, Jordan Crass, 29, and Jarrett Berg, 28, both of Santa Rosa.

Although Hall and Berg have not been arrested, Crass was taken into custody on Wednesday by Sonoma County Sheriff’s deputies and charged with six felony counts.

The trio is accused of embezzling thousands of bottles of wines from Jackson Family Wines and selling them on the Internet.

Crass, who investigators believe to be the ringleader, is a former customer service representative at Kendall-Jackson’s Windsor distribution center. Hall was an employee of Regal Wine Co., a Jackson-owned distribution company. Berg, a friend of Hall’s, is believed to have delivered the wine to the buyers.

When the Register reached Hall on his cell phone, he said, “I don’t have any comment on what you are talking about.”

In April 2007, the Jackson Family Wines vice president for marketing found three different 2004 Bordeaux-style blends of cabernet sauvignon, merlot and cabernet franc on sale on the Internet. The wines had not been released for sale to the public.

Wines priced at $150 a bottle were being advertised at the bargain price of $60 on eBay and four wine Web sites.

Jackson Family Wines then launched an internal investigation. Crass’ computer records revealed he traded bottles of wine for tickets to sporting events, according to court documents obtained by the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat.

Reports by Sonoma County Sheriff’s detectives showed Crass made inventory changes last February involving more than 1,000 bottles of 2002 and 2003 Verité, from Alexander Valley, and Lokoya, made in Rutherford from Mount Veeder grapes, costing up to $175 a bottle.

Crass’ changes showed the shipments had been marked as lost or as returns, so the wine could be sent out without being tied to a specific customer.

According to the documents, these wines were then sold on the Internet, using Hall’s ties to Regal Wine Co.

Other probes into the allegations show 240 unaccounted for bottles of 2000 Verité wines, worth more than $34,000.

A San Jose wine collector told police he bought several bottles of wine from Hall, who contacted him as a representative of Regal Wine Co.

Tiffanie De Liberty, an attorney for Jackson Family Wines, told the Register, “at this time we are not commenting on the case. We would like to see it go a little further before we make a statement.”

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