Eat, prey, love

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Even as a fully fledged bird, I need a mother every now and again. Sometimes I miss the comfort of a sheltering wing; sometimes I just need to be reminded of what’s right and what’s wrong. But needing someone to fill that mama-shaped hole in my heart is no excuse for going all cuckoo on some lovely starlings or sparrows. 

Former Orcutt business owner Julie Darrah owned a coffee shop and deli in Old Town Orcutt and ran Vivid Financial Management. It was through that financial company that she bilked her clients of more than $2.2 million between 2016 and 2023. Some of those clients were elderly or on end-of-life care. 

Darrah, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud, recently got sentenced for her crimes, something her attorney tried to attribute to her lack of a mother figure. 

“Her desperate need for maternal affirmance created the opportunity for this crime,” wrote Darrah’s attorney, Edward Robinson. He sought a three-year sentence for his client. “Appearing before this court is a 52-year-old woman with no criminal history who suffered terrible abuse at the hands of her mother. … As a child, Ms. Darrah’s mother resented her. Her mother’s choosing alcohol and men over her, highlighted by the cruelty and abandonment, certainly affected Ms. Darrah and had some causal connection to this case.”

But instead of forming otherwise healthy relationships with wise women, Darrah “preyed on elderly victims’ desire for human connection, convincing them they could trust her like a daughter, and she then abused that trust and stole their money,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kerry Quinn wrote in a memorandum. 

U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright II sentenced her to the maximum sentence sought of just more than 10 years in prison. 

“This is a heart-wrenching, devastating case, and there is no happy ending. [Darrah] deserves a lengthy prison sentence and no mercy from this court,” Quinn wrote. 

In what sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller, Darrah would get control of some of her clients’ assets, liquidate her victims’ security holdings, and transfer the proceeds to her own separate accounts, according to court records. She also convinced victims to sign documents that either made her the trustee or a signatory on their bank accounts or gave her power of attorney.

Yes, it’s sad and unjust that her mother allegedly abandoned her and didn’t give her the opportunities or possessions she wanted. But that’s no excuse for stealing a mother-figure’s money and using it to buy “luxury vehicles” and help fund business ventures. She was a former co-owner of coffee shop Cups and Crumbs, now under new ownership, and permanently closed deli The Homestead.. 

In a sad bit of irony, also out of a movie plot, Darrah’s investment advisory firm was voted the Best Financial Planner/Accountant in the Sun’s 2020 readers poll.

She sold a lie, stole more than money from her clients, and apparently was pretty good at it. Until she wasn’t.

The Canary will take a cup of justice with a shot of indignation. Send your latte art to canary@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in May 29 – Jun 8, 2025.