Guilty Plea Expected in Bankruptcy Case

The central figure in a massive bankruptcy fraud case is expected to plead guilty today to charges of filing more than 200 bogus bankruptcies to cheat lenders and residents who had retained him to stave off foreclosure of their homes.

Gilfert W. Jackson, 52, is expected to enter the plea in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles to two of the 15 counts from an October indictment, said assistant U.S. Atty. David C. Marcus. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Jackson, of Los Angeles, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center, is likely to be sentenced to at least three years in prison. His lawyer, Public Defender Amy M. Karlin, could not be reached for comment.

Southern California’s bankruptcy courts, perennially the nation’s busiest, have grown even more crowded through a variety of schemes involving the use of phony petitions to tie up other people’s money and property, authorities say.

In another pending case, for example, 52-year-old Bernard Gross is awaiting trial on 17 charges of using bogus bankruptcies to gain control of more than 500 residential properties throughout Southern California, which he then rented out. Gross has pleaded not guilty.

In Jackson’s plea agreement, which he signed last week, he admitted he had illegally obtained money and property “by filing more than 200 fraudulent bankruptcy petitions” from 1992 to 1997.

Authorities said Jackson approached homeowners or renters facing foreclosure and eviction and, for a fee of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, offered his “expert services” to help them remain in their homes.

Once retained, he filed involuntary bankruptcies against his clients, sometimes forging their signatures and listing fictitious debts as the reason for the bankruptcy petition, authorities said. Thus, Jackson collected his fees, and gained his clients the automatic delay in foreclosure proceedings that occurs when a bankruptcy petition is filed.

Jackson’s clients ultimately were evicted, and in at least some cases were dragged into bankruptcy without their knowledge or against their will. In the plea agreement, for example, Jackson acknowledged he had promised to help Downey resident Joseph Amaya avoid eviction “without resort to bankruptcy,” but then filed an involuntary bankruptcy against Amaya in which he listed aliases, a phony Social Security number and fictional debts.

On other occasions, the government said, Jackson moved friends, employees and family members into vacant homes and filed bankruptcy petitions to keep the real owners from renting or selling the properties.