Auctioneer Accused of Overbilling U.S.

William W. Lange, an auctioneer who has worked for tycoon Donald Trump and sold some of Orange County’s properties in bankruptcy, was accused in a civil lawsuit of creating a phony woman-owned business to win federal contracts. The suit, filed by the U.S. attorney’s office, also accuses Lange, his wife, Alisha, and her brother-in-law, Richard H.W. Bennett, of covering up evidence of the alleged sham company and of overbilling the government as much as triple the going rate. The lawsuit seeks $3.6 million that government agencies paid in commissions and expenses to Alisha Lange and her LFC Real Estate Clearinghouse, which prosecutors called a front for William Lange and his Lange Financial Corp. The lawsuit stems from work Clearinghouse did in the early 1990s for the Resolution Trust Corp. and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., agencies that were disposing of assets from failed savings and loans and failed banks. John Petrasich, attorney for the Langes, denied that his clients did anything wrong, calling the lawsuit “nonsense.” Clearinghouse, he said, “is and was from its inception a wholly owned company of Alisha Lange.”