Real Estate Fraud
“Home Equity Loan Scandal Targets Elderly” (Oct. 26) mentioned a new law that provides greater resources to investigate real estate fraud. The idea for the law, in fact, originated with the L.A. County district attorney’s office as a method of funding badly needed prosecutions of nonviolent crime, without cost to taxpayers.
In these tight monetary times, our office is constantly looking for funding, outside the county budget, to prosecute crime. We came up with the idea for this new law, which imposes a $2 recording fee on certain real estate documents to fund investigation and prosecution of real estate fraud. State Sen. Teresa Hughes authored the bill, which Gov. Pete Wilson signed. The result is that the district attorney’s real estate fraud unit will be back in business.
DON M. TAMURA
Deputy District Attorney
Major Fraud Division, L.A. County
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