Mortgage Fraud Cases "Streaming Through The Door" At One California DA's Office; Budget Shortfalls Make Staff Cutbacks Possible

In California, The San Jose Mercury News reports:

• The Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office has been hit with a surge in complaints about home-loan fraud, even as funding to prosecute these cases is plunging. The district attorney's office opened 125 new investigations into mortgage scams last year, four times as many as in 2006, prompting one prosecutor to call 2007 "the year of lending dangerously." The total loss to victims topped $40 million during the 2006-07 fiscal year, the office said. Funding to prosecute these cases is tied in part to the real estate market, so the slowdown in home sales has led to a drop in the amount of money coming into the district attorney's office.

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• "The cases are streaming through the door, and we're doing our best to cover it," said Deputy District Attorney Mike Fitzsimmons, one of only two lawyers assigned full time to real estate fraud. Fitzsimmons said he's working nights and weekends to keep up with the volume. The budget shortfall could exacerbate the problem. If funding continues to decline, the office may have to cut staffing, the district attorney said in a report to the board of supervisors this month.

For more, see Santa Clara County prosecutors besieged by mortgage complaints (Funding For DA's Office To Fight Fraud Is Down).

Go here for the Foreclosure Rescue Warning Letter sent by DA's Office to homeowners receiving Notices of Default in connection with their home mortgages. The letter warns the homeowners about the onslaught of foreclosure rescue operators that they should be expecting and invites the financially strapped homeowner to report them to the DA's Office if they think a crime has been committed.