Real Estate Broker Held in Scheme to Forge Deeds
A Huntington Park real estate broker was arrested Thursday on charges that she ran a scheme to defraud homeowners of their property through forged deeds, prosecutors said. Mercedes Espinosa, 40, was arrested at her office and was being held at Sybil Brand Institute for Women on $300,000 bail, Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Tamura said.
She was scheduled to be arraigned today on three counts of grand theft of personal property, four counts of forgery and one count of money laundering.
Tamura said that Espinosa’s employee, Martha Carrillo, 23, is still being sought. Carrillo is charged with two counts of grand theft of personal property, four counts of forgery and one count of money laundering. Espinosa and Carrillo are suspected of recording fraudulent deeds worth $275,000 on six homes in Huntington Park and South Gate between May and August, 1988, officials said.
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