Texas Con Man Who Claimed to Be a Delta Force Operator Protecting Victims from Drug Cartels is Sentenced to 40 Years for Fraud

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

According to court documents, Saint Jovite Youngblood, aka Kota Youngblood, 51, allegedly committed wire fraud against his victims by claiming Mexican drug cartel members were planning to commit violence against them.

 
Youngblood falsely claimed to be part of the elite U.S. Army’s Delta Force and the CIA and offered protection to his victims from drug cartels in exchange for money totalling over $12 million.

Youngblood also represented that funds obtained from his victim “investors” would be paid back with a significant return on the money. Instead, Youngblood allegedly used most of the money on junkets to Las Vegas to gamble in casinos.

Youngblood defrauded 32 victims for more than $12 million. He was arrested July 31, 2023 and convicted by a federal jury April 23, 2024.

Real estate developer Eric Perardi was one of the victims, he went undercover.

Fake Los Zetas Threats

Eric Perardi, an Austin real estate developer, had been warned the night before that the call from Saint Jovite Youngblood would arrive from a blocked number. Youngblood, whom Perardi had known for five years, told the developer that he’d be there within the hour with urgent, troubling news that had to be delivered in person.

Clad in his signature all-black cargo pants, dark-colored T-shirt and Crocs, Youngblood bounded into Perardi’s Steiner Ranch home. Against the chirping of the birds, the two men paced back and forth on Perardi’s balcony that June 2022 morning with the backdrop of a majestic Hill Country overlook.
“Look, I found out a really frightening piece of information,” said Youngblood, who Perardi believed was a top-secret federal agent with high-level CIA clearance.

He explained that Los Zetas, a Mexican drug cartel known for its viciousness and even beheading rivals, had put out a hit on Perardi and his children — that they could be kidnapped and killed as soon as that day. Perardi, whose projects include the Crossover in Cedar Park and medical office parks, sank in a chair, still in his pajamas, with head-to-toe terror.

“They believe I had all this money from projects I’ve done,” he remembers Youngblood telling him. He also said the cartel knew that Perardi had a multimillion-dollar life insurance policy.

Perardi said Youngblood offered instant protection: Perardi could give him $70,000 that he’d use to pay off the cartel. Perardi wrote him a check right then and there. And over the next several months, Perardi and federal investigators say, he paid Youngblood up to $900,000 that he had believed Youngblood used to satisfy cartel demands.

Federal documents say it was an epic fraud — a magistrate judge called the crimes “the most massive pattern of intimidation of threats and violence and death I have ever seen” — that ensnared at least 20 victims in Austin and across the nation.

In a made-for-TV moment, federal investigators teamed up with Perardi to set up an undercover operation at a North Austin Carrabba's Italian Grill. They wired him with a hidden microphone that let the feds record Youngblood perpetuating the cartel threat and monetary demands, documents say.

With $18,000 in his front pocket that he told investigators was from a casino win, Youngblood was nabbed by agents two months later boarding a flight on his latest Las Vegas junket.

“This fraudster developed close relationships with dozens of individuals, building an immense amount of trust seemingly just to destroy their lives financially through elaborate, deceitful misrepresentations,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “The 40-year sentence that Youngblood will now serve in federal prison, along with the full restitution paid back to the victims, demonstrates the gravity of these crimes, and it is my hope that the individuals and families impacted by his schemes are able to repair any loss they have suffered. Thanks to our partners at the FBI for their investigative efforts that assisted greatly with this successful outcome of justice.”

In addition to the 40 years of imprisonment, Youngblood was ordered to pay the full restitution of $12,766,384.

Sources DOJ, KWTX, Austin American Statesman