Categories: News, Schenectady County

BALLSTON SPA — A career con artist who once involved a Schenectady police sergeant in a car scam was sentenced Monday for another case of fraud, this one involving a harness racehorse, authorities said.

Anthony F. Aubin, 27, of Clifton Park, appeared in Saratoga County Court Monday and was sentenced to two-and-a-half to five years in state prison after his January guilty plea to one count of third-degree grand larceny, a felony.

The sentence is to run at the same time as a 2-to-4-year sentence related to an Albany County scam, making his total term two-and-a-half to five years.

Saratoga Springs police arrested Aubin in October on charges that accused him of stealing $5,000 from a man in June.

Aubin led the victim to believe he was purchasing “claiming rights” to two different harness horses at Saratoga Raceway, police said. The victim paid Aubin but later learned one of the horses pitched by Aubin was actually retired, and the other was already owned outright by someone else unconnected to Aubin. Aubin had no direct connection to either horse, police said.

The horse fraud happened during a two-week period when Aubin was free pending sentencing for the Albany County scam, the one connected to former Schenectady police Sgt. Jonathan Moore, police said.

In that case, Aubin was accused of attempting to defraud car dealerships in Colonie out of expensive vehicles in September and October of 2016. Police said Moore was a witness in that case, not a suspect. Moore, however, later resigned.

Aubin pleaded guilty to fourth-degree criminal possession of a forged instrument in that case and was sentenced to two to four years in state prison in July.