Wife of Compton Mayor Must Repay Swindled Funds

Martha Tucker, wife of Compton Mayor Walter R. Tucker, pleaded no contest Thursday to three counts of grand theft in a plea bargain that saw 15 other felony counts, ranging from forgery to embezzlement, dropped.

Under the terms of the agreement reached in Los Angeles Municipal Court, the city’s first lady must pay back, with interest, all of the nearly $300,000 she swindled from eight victims in real estate transactions.

In addition, she faces up to six years in prison and anywhere from $100 to $10,000 in fines on each count when she is sentenced Aug. 25 in Los Angeles Superior Court.

The prosecutor, Deputy State Atty. Gen. Sharon R. Wooden, said the state’s primary concern is restitution.

“That’s the most important thing; to figure out a payment schedule so the victims get their money back,” Wooden said.

The no-contest plea was an ignominious one for Tucker, who once published a novel lamenting alleged corruption among the ranks of Compton’s public officials. She also founded, in 1982, Compton’s New Image Committee, dedicated to boosting morale in the community.

Also pleading no contest Thursday was her sister, Barbara Hall, 45, who was originally charged with seven felony counts. All seven charges were reduced to a single misdemeanor theft count. Los Angeles Municipal Judge Alban I. Niles ordered Hall to serve one year’s probation in Michigan, where she now resides.

Role Described

Hall, described as a “gofer” by the deputy public defender who represented her, took part in only one of the real estate frauds. In that case, Daniel Ray Moore of Long Beach gave Martha Tucker $45,000 as a deposit and down payment for the purchase of a Los Angeles apartment building. When the deal fell through and Moore tried to retrieve his money, it had disappeared from escrow.

Hall was charged in connection with the forgery of the real estate and escrow documents while she worked at Mattco Financial Inc., a business that the mayor owned and Martha Tucker operated.

In the other cases involving just Martha Tucker, victims invested money in Georgia mobile home parks through a company called First Southeastern Properties. Martha Tucker, according to the attorney general’s office, was a general partner in that firm.

Moore has already been paid back, court officials said. Other victims, who were defrauded in amounts ranging from $10,000 to $37,500, have so far received a total of $14,000 in restitution. They are still owed $238,500, plus interest.

The attorney general’s office prosecuted the case because Walter Tucker III, who acted as his mother’s attorney, had earlier been fired from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s staff. The younger Tucker allegedly lied to a judge about evidence in a narcotics case and tried later to falsify records in order to cover up the lie. Last month, he pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of altering an official record. He was placed on three years’ probation and ordered to pay a $100 fine.