In a bizarre case that’s been in the courts for more than 15 years, a disgraced one-time SF lawyer has been sentenced to life without parole for helping four “gay grifters” murder an art gallery owner and sell off his possessions.
Back in 2009, SFist became very interested in what was tabbed at the time as the “gay grifters” scandal that ended in a gruesome murder. This 2009 SF Weekly cover story tells the wild tale of then-26-year-old Kaushal Niroula, known by the nicknames “the Nepalese Prince” and “Prince Little Stuff” over his false claims that he was descended from Nepalese royalty. Among other exploits, Niroula managed to help cause the implosion of SF’s New College with fake million-dollar promises and a fraudulent visa scam, was part of a crew that faked deeds to Rincon Hill condos to take out bogus loans on them, and he reportedly bilked a Japanese woman in Hawaii out of $500,000.
But these were not the worst of Niroula’s schemes. Niroula was part of the five-man “gay grifter” scheme that murdered 74-year-old Palm Springs art gallery dealer Clifford Lambert by stabbing him in 2008, and they then hid his body (it was not found until 2017). As SF Weekly explained at the time, the grifter crew also conspired to “fraudulently sell Lambert's house, loot his bank and investment accounts, steal his Mercedes sports car, and truck away his collection of fine art.”
One member of the crew was SF attorney David Replogle, who is now 76 years old, disbarred from practicing law, and in prison for that murder.
"A then-licensed attorney, Replogle used his legal credentials to forge power-of-attorney documents, enabling his co-conspirators to transfer more than $185,000 from Lambert’s accounts after the stabbing,” the Riverside County District Attorney’s Office said in a statement. “Replogle attempted to liquidate Lambert’s assets including his home and art collection.”
After a series of appeals and mistrials, KGO reports that Replogle was finally sentenced to life without parole late last week. "It is one of the most unusual cases in California history,” Riverside County Senior Deputy District Attorney Lisa DiMaria told KGO. "The number of defendants, and largely the amount of resources spent on this case, really rivals no other case."
Replogle still maintains his innocence. In a jailhouse interview with the Bay Area Reporter published less than two months ago, Replogle claimed the charges against him were "right out of Putin's Russia, and you can quote me on that."
As for Kaushal Niroula, he was killed by his cellmate in a Riverside County jail in September 2022.
Meanwhile with the other three so-called “gay grifters,” Miguel Bustamante (a one-time bartender at the now-defunct Jet bar in the Castro) and Daniel Garcia are both in the process of appealing their life sentences. A fifth co-conspirator, former Daly City resident Craig McCarthy, testified against all the others, and will be eligible for parole next year.
Related: SF-Based Gay Grifter Crew Being Held for Murder [SFist]
