Jury Convicts Developer in Land Fraud : Encino Man Inflated Price of Mountain Parcel He Sold to U.S.

Encino real estate developer Jerry Oren was convicted Wednesday of plotting to drive up the price of a scenic Agoura tract he owned so he could sell it to the National Park Service for more than it was worth.

The jury that heard the one-week case deliberated less than three hours before convicting Oren, 51, of wire fraud and making false statements. Sentencing was set for Sept. 14 before U.S. District Judge Harry Hupp, the judge’s clerk said.

Summing up the case for jurors, Assistant U.S. Atty. Ralph Hirschmann said Oren and an associate collaborated to fabricate and backdate a $9.3-million offer on the 336-acre parcel in the Santa Monica Mountains in September, 1984.

An appraiser relied on that phony offer in valuing the land at $8.4 million, resulting in its sale to the Park Service for $8 million. It was the most expensive parcel ever bought for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Oren’s attorney, Bruce Hochman, said his client has been falsely portrayed as the moving force behind the plan. Hochman said it was Radoslav Sutnar, a consultant to Oren who has pleaded no contest in the case, who pushed the plan because he had a commission to gain from the sale.

“Sutnar had the biggest commission in his life, $750,000,” Hochman said.

Hochman also said Oren was reluctant to let the appraiser see the $9.3-million offer because he viewed it more as an expression of interest than as a legally sound offer.

But Hirschmann said it was Oren who formulated and pursued the plan to fabricate the $9.3-million offer to drive up the price of the land. He said the two men collaborated on the plan.

“There was no way that Mr. Sutnar was a rogue elephant doing all this behind Mr. Oren’s back,” Hirschmann said.

The indictment said that the nonprofit Trust for Public Lands, which buys land and resells it to the Park Service, agreed to an option to buy the parcel for $7.5 million.

Knowing that the land had been appraised earlier for $5.8 million, Oren set out to find a higher appraisal, prosecutors said.

Oren and Moshe Ziv, a New York associate who was dismissed from the case, agreed by telephone to fabricate a letter saying that Union Pacific wanted the land for $9.3 million, the indictment said.

Oren then had Sutnar backdate the letter so it would look as though that offer preceded the offer from the Trust for Public Lands, Hirschmann said.

Relying on the phony offer, a second appraiser valued the land at $8.4 million, Hirschmann said.