Developer Ordered to Pay $300,000 in Park Scam

A federal judge on Monday sentenced a politically prominent San Fernando Valley developer to five years probation and ordered him to pay fines and restitution of more than $300,000 for using a fake letter to inflate the price of a Santa Monica Mountains tract he sold to the National Park Service.

U.S. District Judge Harry L. Hupp also ordered Jerry Y. Oren to perform 1,500 hours of community work but rejected a recommendation that the 61-year-old developer be imprisoned.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Ralph F. Hirschmann had argued for a 90-day jail term as a deterrent to “Southern California land developers . . . watching this prosecution like hawks.”

But defense attorney Bruce I. Hochman insisted that because of Oren’s prominence, “the act of indictment, the act of trial, serves as a sufficient deterrency.”

Oren could have been sentenced to a maximum of 10 years in prison and $11,000 in fines for cheating the government in the 1985 sale of 336 oak-covered acres in Agoura’s Cheeseboro Canyon.

False Statement and Wire Fraud

He was convicted July 15 of one count of wire fraud and one count of making a false statement in a matter within National Park Service jurisdiction.

As a condition of probation, Hupp ordered Oren to pay the government $272,000 in restitution, plus interest from the date of sale in January, 1985. He also imposed the maximum fine of $11,000.

However, Hupp apparently left unclear whether Oren’s recent unsolicited offer of 20 acres of Cheeseboro Canyon land to the National Park Service would substitute for the $272,000 in restitution.

Hochman said that Oren offered the land “because he did something wrong, and he wants to fix it” and that the land should be accepted in lieu of cash restitution.

Prosecutor Hirschmann said the Park Service would need at least 90 days to evaluate the land and argued that the restitution should be made in cash.

After the sentencing, Hirschmann said he interpreted Hupp’s order as ruling out any substitution of land for cash restitution, while James C. Chalfant, co-counsel for Oren, said he felt the issue was “left up in the air, to be decided maybe at another hearing.”

Hupp said that about 75 letters sent to him on behalf of Oren by prominent Southland residents were “impressive to me in both their quality and quantity.”

1,500 Hours Service

The judge said that Oren’s 1,500 hours of community service--about three days each month over five years--were more than normal for such a case, and that he felt the community would be better served with Oren performing such work rather than serving prison time.

At his trial, Oren--a leading contributor to the campaigns of Southland elected officials and a friend to Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky and other political leaders--had several prominent Southern Californians testify for him as character witnesses.

They included Nathan Shapell, one of California’s biggest builders and chairman of the Little Hoover Commission, the state’s government efficiency watchdog; and Rabbi David L. Lieber, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles.

In recent years, Oren’s Beverly Hills home has been the scene of receptions for then-Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt and Lawrence Eagleburger, then undersecretary of state for political affairs, as well as for lesser political luminaries.

Oren was convicted of using a fictitious letter to inflate the appraised value of his property.

In the letter, a New York real estate agent told Oren that Union Pacific had offered $9.3 million for the developer’s Agoura acreage.

In court, appraiser Thomas W. Erickson said he had set his $8.4-million appraisal based on the purported Union Pacific offer.

A Union Pacific vice president testified that no offer was made.

An earlier appraisal put the land’s value at $5.8 million.

The tract was sold in December, 1984, by Oren to the San Francisco-based Trust for Public Land, which was acting as intermediary for the Park Service, for $7.5 million.

The trust resold the land a month later to the Park Service for $8 million for inclusion in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.

Radoslav L. Sutnar, a former president of the Los Angeles County Countywide Citizen’s Planning Council and a consultant to Oren in the transaction, pleaded no contest to felony wire fraud for his role in the scheme and testified against Oren in court.

In August, Hupp sentenced the 58-year-old consultant to serve three years probation, perform 300 hours of community service and pay a $1,000 fine.