Costa Mesa Man Pleads Guilty in Bank Loan Case

Jose De La Jara of Costa Mesa pleaded guilty Friday to a single charge of federal mail fraud after admitting that he used forged documents to get Mission Viejo National Bank to give him an $828,000 loan.

De La Jara, prosecutors said, preyed on the Latino communities in Orange and Los Angeles counties, promising 22% annual returns on investments in real estate.

His company, Santa Ana’s Inversiones y Finanzas America, or IFA, advertised widely on Spanish-language radio and television.

But the company invested only a little of the money it took in and eventually had little cash to pay investors other than the rent from a handful of buildings, prosecutors said.

When De La Jara couldn’t pay investors, he obtained the loan to keep the company afloat by using false personal and corporate income tax returns.

He also admitted ordering an assistant to forge investors’ names on a document that appeared to give De La Jara control of IFA’s buildings and which he used for collateral on the loan.

Mission Viejo National Bank failed last year and was seized by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. Federal regulators said the bank had a history of “liberal lending practices and inefficient supervision” by management and directors.

De La Jara, also known as Jose Fernandez, has been in jail since his arrest in 1989. He was convicted of money-laundering and had been serving time since the arrest when a federal appeals court overturned that conviction recently.

But De La Jara also pleaded guilty recently to another money-laundering-related charge, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Ellyn Marcus Lindsay, and has remained in jail.

He faces up to five years in jail, three years of strict probation and a fine of $250,000 on the mail fraud charge.

He is to be sentenced Feb. 22. in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles.