THE NEWS IN BRIEF: Cambridge apartment scam case advances, judge takes proceedings to next step

A Cambridge District Court judge scheduled a compliance and elections date yesterday in the case of a former Harvard Extension School student accused of running a real estate scam, moving the case closer to trial.

Twenty-three-year-old Linda Vaghar, who is accused of defrauding more than a dozen people out of tens of thousands of dollars, is currently charged with at least 11 counts of larceny over $250, each of which comes with a maximum prison sentence of five years.

The judge scheduled Vaghar’s next appearance in court for May 26. Vaghar was also arraigned yesterday for one new count of larceny in her second pre-trial hearing.

In her last appearance in court, Vaghar had intended to change her plea to guilty as part of an agreement reached with the Middlesex District Attorney’s office that would have enabled her to avoid jail time. But Cambridge District Court Judge Severlin Singelton rejected the plea, instead saying that he wanted to impose a minimum of 60 days of jail time.

Vaghar’s alleged scam involved listing her Cambridge apartment for rent on Craigslist.org, convincing interested renters to pay her the first and last month’s rent, and then at the last minute making up sob stories—such as the death or sickness of one of her parents—to back out of the deal. The scam left victims struggling for months with a trail of excuses and bad checks in an effort to recover their money.

—Staff writer Reed B. Rayman can be reached at rrayman@fas.harvard.edu.