Supervisors, D.A. Trade Charges on Land Fraud Case

A pair of angry Los Angeles County supervisors Tuesday grilled a defiant Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti on why his office failed to act effectively to stop Marshall Redman, the developer charged with defrauding working-class Latinos in a High Desert land swindle.

In an hourlong session before the Board of Supervisors, Garcetti was repeatedly pressed by supervisors Mike Antonovich and Gloria Molina, who demanded to know why his office was not the lead agency in the case and what prosecutors are doing to stop Redman from making further sales.

Redman was charged in May with fraud and theft in a scheme that allegedly targeted 1,500 buyers, some of whom remain stranded on desert land in three Southern California counties without utilities and running water.

A combative Garcetti said his office has been “on top” of the case since the beginning, chided supervisors for their lack of legal expertise and blamed them for failing to provide funding for an effective program to combat land fraud.

In one pointed exchange, Molina chastised Garcetti’s staff for unresponsiveness to her inquiries about the Redman case and the role of the district attorney’s office in putting it together.

“This is a very annoying discussion for me. I don’t appreciate being on the receiving end of someone playing games with me,” Molina told the county’s highest-ranking law enforcement official. “We’ve been chasing around your staff, Mr. Garcetti. They’re very difficult to get answers from.”

Molina said she did not know why prosecutors filed charges more than two years after Kern County prosecutors and the Los Angeles city attorney’s office filed a civil lawsuit in 1992 against the developer to recoup some of the losses in the sales.

Last month, Garcetti’s office filed a written report explaining his agency’s handling of the Redman case. Supervisors rejected the report as insufficient and called for the district attorney to appear in person.

When Antonovich suggested that Garcetti’s office had been informed of the Redman matter in 1992, a year before the date Garcetti supplied in the written report, Garcetti erupted.

“Now wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,” he said. “Mr. Antonovich, if you have some facts, I’m willing to discuss them. But let’s make sure all the facts are correct.”

Moments later, Molina broke in with her criticism of Garcetti’s staff.

“I still can’t figure out what kind of role you are playing at all. I have no understanding and that’s because your staff has not been forthcoming and I don’t appreciate it,” Molina said. “So that you understand it, in the future when we ask a question, it requires an answer.”

When Garcetti defended staffers, saying he wasn’t sure any questions were asked, Molina cut him off.

“Now, you just wait one minute,” she snapped. “We need lawyers on our side to talk to your lawyers. So I have to hire a lawyer to get answers?”

And so it went.

For more than an hour, Garcetti and the board members cut each other off, interrupted one another’s sentences, raised their voices and pointed fingers.

At one point, Antonovich suggested that since the charges against Redman came years after the land sales were halted in 1994, perhaps prosecutors would not be able to proceed at all because the statute of limitations on any crimes would have expired.

“In due respect, Mr. Supervisor, you don’t know what your talking about,” a visibly riled and red-faced Garcetti responded.

Garcetti said his agency had heard about the case in November 1993 and had decided to wait for a resolution of the civil case before proceeding with any investigation and eventual charges.

He emphasized that officials had obtained an injunction against Redman’s companies to stop misleading sales practices. But before any charges were brought, he said, authorities wanted to try to help victims recoup their losses.

“The point is we were on top of this case,” he said. “We were working with the various agencies. The victims in this case have been protected as much as humanly possible.”

In turn, Garcetti criticized the board for inadequate funding in years past for land fraud investigations, saying his office had to go before the state Assembly to lobby for a bill that funds fraud investigations through a $2 fee on some property transactions.

“For the last four years I have been district attorney, almost every year I have come before this board and said there are huge real estate frauds going on that essentially affect the minority community,” he said.

“You said ‘Oh yes, we have to do something.’ But I didn’t see any motion or any money, so we went out and did it ourselves,” Garcetti said.