Compton : 2 Plead Innocent to Fraud

The wife and the sister-in-law of Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker have pleaded innocent to charges that they defrauded a Long Beach man out of $45,000 that was to have gone toward the purchase of a Los Angeles apartment building. A preliminary hearing in the real estate fraud case against Martha Tucker and her sister, Barbara Hall, is scheduled April 10, according to Deputy Atty. Gen. Terry T. Fugimoto.

The day before their arraignment last Friday, Martha Tucker paid a $56,865 out-of-court settlement in a related civil suit that had been filed in 1985 by the alleged victim, Danny Ray Moore. In that case, Moore alleged that he had given the women money to be deposited in an escrow account. But when the real estate deal fell through, he claimed, the money was not returned to him.

In the settlement, Moore agreed to drop the civil action after Martha Tucker paid him $45,000 in principal, $5,365 in interest, $5,000 in punitive damages and $1,500 in fees to Moore’s Long Beach attorney, Robert M. Orr. Orr could not be reached for comment, but his partner, Leonard Matsuk, confirmed the settlement details.