Former SF resident Garcia sentenced to life in Palm Springs ‘gay grifters’ case

After more than 16 years of litigation, including two trials, a former San Francisco resident convicted in the notorious Palm Springs “gay grifters” murder case was sentenced to life in prison Friday, April 25. The defendant had told the Bay Area Reporter earlier this year that he was confident his conviction would be overturned.

Instead, Riverside County Superior Court Judge Anthony R. Villalobos sentenced Daniel Garcia, 42, to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the 2008 murder of Palm Springs retiree Clifford Lambert, 74. The sentencing hearing took place in Indio, about 20 miles from Palm Springs.

Villalobos rejected Garcia’s motion for a new trial. He also rejected Garcia’s motion to represent himself. His attorney, Peter Scalisi, told the judge he planned to file an appeal immediately after the hearing. Outside court, Scalisi told the Bay Area Reporter he was not optimistic that the appeal would be successful.

Garcia asked the judge to recommend that he serve his time at either San Quentin Rehabilitation Center in Marin County, Mule Creek State Prison in Ione in Amador County, or Valley State Prison in Chowchilla in Madera County because they are closer to his relatives, who live in the Central Valley. The judge agreed to make that recommendation.

In an exclusive jailhouse interview with the Bay Area Reporter on February 27, Garcia said he was confident his conviction would eventually be overturned on appeal. He had also maintained that he was convicted with fabricated evidence.

Garcia was not in Palm Springs at the time of the murder but juries in two separate trials found him guilty of conspiring to kill Lambert along with Miguel Bustamante, Craig McCarthy, Kaushal Niroula, and David Replogle. Bustamante is serving a life sentence and McCarthy was given a 25 year prison term. He had testified against the other men. Niroula was murdered in jail by a cellmate in 2022. Replogle is expected to be sentenced later this spring.

Lambert was stabbed to death in his Palm Springs home in early December 2008. His remains were not discovered until 2016 and 2017 near Castaic, in northern Los Angeles County. But the remains were not identified through DNA as being Lambert’s until 2020.

Prosecutors say Niroula and Garcia were involved in a number of cons. Niroula was from Nepal and falsely claimed to be a member of the Nepalese royal family. He was dubbed the “Dark Prince.” A Japanese woman visiting Hawaii said Niroula conned her out of more than $500,000. He was granted a student visa to study at the now-closed New College in San Francisco's Mission District. He promised the school a $1 million donation. The donation never came. New College eventually closed in 2008, months before Lambert's murder. Niroula was connected to a real estate con for over $2 million in connection with falsified real estate deeds for three condos at One Rincon Tower in San Francisco.

Garcia was connected with a case that resulted in the imprisonment of gay San Francisco philanthropist Thomas White in a jail in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. Garcia told the B.A.R. that he was violently sexually assaulted by White when he was 16, and that federal investigators informed him that White had similarly abused other underage boys. Garcia said that against his advice, his then-attorney, Replogle, included some Mexican boys in a lawsuit against White who were never molested by him. Mexican authorities charged several of the boys who accused White with extortion for lying about being molested for the promise of a lawsuit payout. White was 78 when he died in custody after more than a decade in jail.


Updated, 4/27/25: This article has been corrected to state that defandant David Replogle has not yet been sentenced.