Court briefs

Bolivar Hernandez Ramirez, of San Mateo, was playing cards with the 26-year-old victim and a group of others at a home in the 300 block of North Claremont Street Wednesday. Ramirez believed the man cheated at the game, unfairly winning several thousand dollars, according to prosecutors. Ramirez left the game but returned with a knife and stabbed the man several times. The victim was hospitalized at Stanford Medical Center with a collapsed lung and several stab wounds to his upper leg and back. He is expected to survive without long-term effects.

San Mateo police responded to the house about 7:30 p.m. and arrested Ramirez.

Sentencing on elder abuse charge delayed

A married couple accused of bilking an elderly Burlingame man of $150,000 over the course of five years delayed sentencing on a single count of elder abuse until next month so they can have a full hearing.

Jake Mason, 50, and his wife, Janet, 53, pleaded no contest in March to the charge in return for a promise of no state prison and prosecutors dropping other charges of financial elder abuse, theft, grand theft and forgery.

The couple expected to learn their fate Friday but postponed sentencing to allow them a full hearing, according to court records clerks. Typically, sentencing hearings are set when defendants want to call witnesses or present other mitigating evidence.

Prosecutors claim the Masons befriended the Burlingame couple in 1998. After the woman died, the Masons cleaned out his life savings through unauthorized credit card use, forged checks and unpaid loans, prosecutors claim. The couple repeatedly convinced the widower to loan them money which they never repaid, wrote checks to themselves and used the man's credit cards without permission through 2003.

The District Attorney's Office filed charges in April 2004 and the couple initially pleaded not guilty. Each were free from custody on individual $100,000 bail bonds but, during a court appearance to set a trial date, changed their minds about a plea bargain and accepted the deal.