DA's Office Scores Add'l Cash To Fund Probes, Prosecutions Of Local Real Estate Ripoffs

In Stockton, California, the Stockton Record reports:

• Real estate fraud prosecution requires months of work before the schemers - more often they involve a band of perpetrators - are brought to justice, prosecutors say. And San Joaquin County's foreclosure problems certainly have made the area vulnerable to those crimes. The District Attorney's Office can handle only a few with its staff levels.
  
  But the backlog of pending investigations may go to court sooner than had been expected.
  
  County supervisors have approved allocating money to hire a deputy district attorney and an investigator to take on cases sitting on the back burner. Money for the two new positions comes from the state's $5.2 million Foreclosure Crisis Recovery Fund, the result of a settlement from Countrywide Financial Group. San Joaquin County's portion is $382,239.
  
  "These one-time funds provided by the settlement must be solely utilized to enhance the District Attorney's ability to investigate and prosecute real estate fraud," District Attorney James Willett said in a staff report.

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• The county combats real estate crimes with funding from the state's Real Estate Fraud Prosecution Program, and for the county, the team consists of one attorney, one investigator and one paralegal. The additional positions will allow the District Attorney's Office to trim down the backlog and carry out its work more effectively.
  
  Funding was generated through a lawsuit filed by the state against two ex-Countrywide Financial Corp. executives accused of predatory lending. The executives settled for $6.5 million, of which $5.2 million was to be used for homeowner education and fraud prosecution.

For the story, see S.J. gets funding to go after real estate fraud (DA gets staff from settlement of state suit against lender).