Developer to Serve Fraud Term at Home

Convicted swindler Marshall Redman, who duped 2,500 mostly low-income Latinos into purchasing homes on virtually useless land in the High Desert, began serving his sentence Monday, but not behind bars.

Redman, who pleaded no contest in October to grand theft and filing false documents, was sentenced to a year in county jail. But probation officials deemed him eligible for “alternative confinement,” meaning that he will serve his sentence in his home.

The former developer, 69, will be required to wear an electronic monitoring device, said Deputy Bill Martin of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Typically, Martin said, those ordered to wear such devices are confined to their home or workplace.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area where many of Redman’s victims live, called the developer’s sentence “a slap on the wrist.”

“This sentence is an affront to people who lost millions of dollars to him,” Antonovich said in a written statement. “The district attorney’s failure to make an example out of Redman’s blatant sale of unusable land to unsuspecting buyers was a sham and a travesty of justice.”

Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, said prosecutors’ hands were tied once Redman was sentenced.

“We don’t determine where he serves his sentence,” Gibbons said. “Once they’re sentenced we have no control.”

Martin said such factors as Redman’s age, his lack of prior arrests and his conviction for a nonviolent crime probably contributed to the decision to allow him to serve his time outside jail.

C.M. “Bud” Starr, a Kern County prosecutor who sued Redman in civil court in 1994, praised Los Angeles County prosecutors for obtaining what he called “a very difficult conviction to get.”

“While I’m sure a lot of people would like to see Marshall Redman go into a mean, ugly jail for a long, long time, at his age this is a considerable punishment,” Starr said.

Neither Redman nor his lawyer, Harland Braun, was available for comment.

Redman promised his clients a piece of the American Dream with a house in a clean, safe development far from the sprawl of Los Angeles. But many of his victims found themselves living in makeshift homes without electricity or running water, improvements that were promised but never provided.

In a series of articles in 1996, The Times disclosed the extent of Redman’s fraud and the inaction of prosecutors and regulators, despite more than 100 complaints. Pictures accompanying the stories showed children studying by candlelight and a girl washing her hair in a rain barrel.

Redman originally faced 29 charges in connection with land fraud. His sentence in October was the result of a plea bargain with prosecutors in which he agreed to plead no contest to seven charges. He also was fined $10,000.

Many of Redman’s victims, who responded to his ads in the Spanish-language news media, struggled with English and did not fully understand the complex process of buying a home.

The developer took busloads of people from Los Angeles neighborhoods to the site in northeast Los Angeles County, which he promised would soon be developed. The scam flourished for years until he was sued by Los Angeles and Kern counties in 1994.

Even today, many of Redman’s victims in the Hi Vista development live in pioneer-like conditions, still lacking electricity and running water, while banks and a court-appointed receiver sort out the developer’s finances.