Developer Gets Year in High Desert Land Fraud

Los Angeles developer Marshall Redman was sentenced to jail Monday for leading a massive land swindle that defrauded as many as 2,500 buyers and escaped the reach of local and state authorities for years.

Many of his victims ended up living in makeshift homes on undeveloped land in the High Desert, with no running water or electricity. Redman sold the property to his mostly Spanish-speaking clients on false promises that utilities and other improvements were coming.

In a deal with prosecutors, Redman pleaded no contest to seven felony charges against him, including grand theft and filing false documents. He was sentenced to one year in County Jail, eight years’ probation and a $10,000 fine.

Redman, 69, will begin serving his sentence Dec. 21.

He originally faced 29 charges in connection with the land fraud.

“He’s never going to go sell a piece of land again in his life,” said his lawyer, Harland Braun. “It had to be resolved. He wanted to have the certainty” of knowing his fate.

In 1996, the Los Angeles Times published articles disclosing both the extent of Redman’s fraud--a classic California land scam--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.

The county agreed to give the desert residents access to county water only after the stories ran.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the area where many victims still reside, lashed out at the district attorney’s office for giving too lenient a sentence.

“Marshall Redman’s sentence of one year in prison will actually amount to no time in prison since the probation report will likely recommend a ‘monitoring’ program rather than prison time,” Antonovich said in a statement. “This slap on the wrist is an affront to people who lost millions of dollars to him. The $10,000 fine and eight years probation is an affront to justice. 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. This is the second time the district attorney has bent over backwards to be lenient toward Redman. Only after Kern County and the Los Angeles city attorney took action in this case in January 1994 did our . . . district attorney decide to prosecute.”

Prosecutors, however, defended their efforts.

“Mr. Redman’s notoriety aside, we believe he was treated fairly; he received a fair sentence,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Wenke. “For a 69-year-old man with no criminal record, not committing a violent felony, I don’t think he got off lightly.”

Even now, with Redman’s punishment decided, the families he defrauded remain in prisons of his design. Many in the northeast Los Angeles County of Hi Vista live without electricity or running water, while banks and a court-appointed receiver tangle over his ill-gotten fortune.

“People are living in very pioneering conditions,” said Father Philip Edwards, who offers Mass at the Our Lady of Guadalupe church, which serves the remote corner of the county where many Redman victims still live. “I fear the problem, when the dust settles, is that people will have lost their money and won’t have rights to the land.”

Redman’s businesses were placed in receivership as a result of civil litigation filed by Los Angeles city attorneys. But distribution of his assets has been delayed by questionable court administration and legal wrangling.

The first court-appointed receiver, Donald Henry, allegedly misspent $1 million of the frozen fortune and then fled to Australia. The current receiver has been unable to compensate Redman’s poverty-stricken victims because he is bogged down in a wrestling match with two banks and a group of trusts seeking access to Redman’s fortune.

“I think it’s time to quit worrying about Marshall Redman and start worrying about the people who paid all that money,” said C.M. “Bud” Starr, a Kern County prosecutor, who with Los Angeles officials filed a civil suit against Redman in 1994.

Many of the families put up tens of thousands of dollars for their dream of home ownership. Mostly poor immigrants who struggled with English as well as the complexities of home buying, they were led to the Antelope Valley by Redman, who advertised in the Spanish-language media.

He took busloads of people from Los Angeles neighborhoods to the dusty northern outskirts of the county to show them land he promised would one day be developed.

Redman’s swindle flourished for years before the Los Angeles and Kern County lawsuit finally stopped him. Zoning officials for the two jurisdictions cited Redman property more than 100 times for building and subdivision violations, but none of them had much impact on his land sales business.

Even though consumer watchdogs first heard about his sales tactics in 1989, the county Consumer Affairs Department spent three years gathering complaints before referring the case to prosecutors.

After disclosures in The Times, the county set up several groups to help Redman’s victims.

County officials say they also have since reformed their monitoring of land sales to protect against such scams. Representatives from federal, state and local agencies meet monthly at the district attorney’s office to discuss current cases, and a county hotline (800-973-3370) has been set up for callers to offer tips about possible wrongdoers.

“The communication is a lot better,” said Tim Bissell, assistant director of the county Consumer Affairs Department. “I hate to say it can’t happen [again]. One of the things that keeps fraud going is that people are ingenious enough to find a way to make it undetectable for a time. We don’t want to see it happen again. We’re really sick of seeing people ripped off.”

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Redman Chronology

1978 to 1994: Advertising on Spanish-language radio and television, developer Marshall Redman sells 2,500 parcels of desert scrubland to working-class Latinos in Los Angeles, Kern and San Bernardino counties, most for prices from $19,900 to $39,900.

May 14, 1996: Redman charged with seven felony counts, facing up to eight years in prison if convicted; pleads not guilty to charges.

June 1, 1996: State and local leaders call for reform and an investigation of government agencies that took more than a decade to stop Redman’s land sales scheme.

June 4, 1996: Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appoints two panels to provide a warning system to such large-scale land fraud and to find ways to assist the developer’s victims.

July 15, 1996: County Supervisor Mike Antonovich calls for an investigation of why the Department of Regional Planning didn’t move more aggressively against illegal subdividers.

Dec. 10, 1996: Board of Supervisors enacts sweeping public-interest reforms that will provide buyers of undeveloped land broad new protections.

March 24, 1998: Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien rules that more than $1 million meant to help the mostly low-income people who bought property from Redman has been misspent by receivership trustee Donald Henry.

April 1, 1998: Redman ordered to stand trial on 29 charges of grand theft, fraud and forgery.

Oct. 26, 1998: Plea deal struck; Redman to serve a year in County Jail.