Real Estate Man Mazur Hit With 29 New Charges

A federal grand jury on Wednesday added five counts of tax fraud and 24 counts of bankruptcy fraud to criminal charges returned last December against Los Angeles real estate investor Sherman Mazur.

The new counts include allegations of a $5.6-million tax fraud, making the Mazur case one of the biggest tax fraud cases in the country, even larger than such celebrated recent cases as the one involving former New York hotel executive Leona Helmsley.

The charges come on top of a 45-count indictment for bankruptcy fraud and money laundering in December stemming from the way Mazur managed more than 200 real estate partnerships across the country during the 1980s.

A lawyer for Mazur, Diana Spielberger, said the new charges were expected, calling them “the same crap we’ve known about.” She said Mazur, who pleaded innocent to the earlier charges, is innocent of the new charges as well.

The heart of the government’s case is allegations that Mazur supported a lavish lifestyle by diverting money to himself from real estate partnerships he ran, as well as failing to report to the Internal Revenue Service millions of dollars in income.

Mazur is charged with diverting $1 million from bankrupt real estate partnerships to pay for Italian marble floors, construction work on his home, household help and credit card bills. He is also accused of diverting $700,000 from an insurance trust account for a real estate partnership in bankruptcy proceedings.

The new charges also allege that Mazur failed to include income of $1.2 million in 1985, $1.7 million in 1986, $615,781 in $1987 and $2.1 million in 1988 on his federal tax form.

Mazur was once lauded as a budding star in the real estate business, specializing in real estate “workouts” in which troubled properties are restructured into financial shape. At his zenith, Mazur operated through the now-defunct American Resource Corp. in Century City and was a prominent figure on the Los Angeles social and charitable scene.