Former Real Estate Salesman Held in Investment Scheme

A former real estate salesman is in custody in Los Angeles on charges that he bilked 19 members of Emmanuel Evangelical Free Church in Burbank out of nearly $5 million in a property investment scheme, officials said.

Bruce Rodney Swanson, 44, was arrested Monday night at his Sierra Madre home by investigators from the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office. Swanson faces 66 felony counts--44 securities violations, 11 money laundering violations and 11 grand theft offenses, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Anthony Colannino, who filed the 203-page complaint Monday.

Swanson, who is married and works as a truck driver for a soda company, pleaded not guilty to the charges Tuesday afternoon during an arraignment in Los Angeles Municipal Court. He remains in custody on $5-million bail.

Commissioner Abraham Khan set a bail review for Wednesday and a Sept. 13 preliminary hearing.

If convicted, Swanson could be sentenced to up to 11 years in state prison and fined up to $30 million, Colannino said.

Swanson’s attorney, Deputy Public Defender John Powers, declined to comment on the case Wednesday.

Swanson’s arrest Monday came after a three-year investigation during which officials served several search warrants at his home and reviewed 1.5 million financial documents, including bank statements and transactions, Colannino said.

Prosecutors learned of Swanson’s alleged activities in September, 1990, when congregation members complained that he had told them $10 million in investments had gone bad.

Nineteen of them filed complaints with the district attorney’s fraud division office, he said.

Colannino said Swanson began taking investment funds from victims in the early 1970s. Investors were in their mid-40s to late 70s.

“Everybody trusted Swanson, because, hey, he’s a member of the church. . . He wouldn’t do anything bad to their money,” Colannino said. “The guy is the kind of guy you would trust your money with.”

For nearly 20 years, Swanson allegedly received investments ranging from $10,000 to as much as $500,000, Colannino said. Swanson is believed to have issued phony grant deeds purporting to show that investors owned a percentage of either residential or commercial property.

“Some of these properties he didn’t even own when he sold them,” Colannino said.

Investors never knew about the status of their properties--or whether they actually owned them--because Swanson persuaded them not to check with the county recorder’s office, the prosecutor said.

Some who insisted on finding out about their investments received interest payments of a few thousand dollars from Swanson, Colannino said, but none had their principal returned.