His son received leniency [6 months], but disgraced real estate executive Carlyle “Carl” Lee Cole was sentenced Monday to 17 1/2 years behind bars — the full term recommended by prosecutors — for participating in Bakersfield’s most notorious mortgage fraud conspiracy.
The sentences reflected what U.S. District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill called a “tragedy at all levels.” He described the situation as a hard-working son being lured into his father’s “egregious, planned, white-collar heist.”