New DA mortgage fraud unit obtains plea deal
| Thursday, Feb 25 2010 06:37 PM
Last Updated Thursday, Feb 25 2010 06:37 PM
A three-year-old real estate fee the county imposed to fund mortgage fraud investigations has netted its first catch.
Primo Feliciano Jacquez, 37, pleaded no contest in Kern County Superior Court Thursday to one count of grand theft by false pretense.
Jacquez was accused of taking $385,000 from seven investors in late 2007, using forged documents to convince them to finance a fictitious strip mall project in the Rio Bravo area, according to the Kern County District Attorney's Office.
A contractor, Jacquez was also accused of diverting more than $43,000 he was paid to repair a home that had been damaged in a fire. The work was never done, the DA's office said.
Jacquez's attorney, David Torres, said Jacquez entered the plea because he was "extremely remorseful for this incident."
Jacquez will be sentenced April 8 to two years and four months in state prison, as well paying restitution to all his victims.
He will do his best to pay it, Torres said, but "he also believes there are other people who should be responsible for restitution, as well. When the truth surfaces, we're certain that justice will take place."
The case should put white collar criminals on notice that the District Attorney's Office takes real estate fraud seriously, said the head of the new mortgage fraud unit, Deputy District Attorney Gordon Isen.
Real estate fraud cases are complex and take a lot of time to investigate, but the statute of limitations clock doesn't start ticking until the fraud is uncovered, so authorities can pursue even very old cases, Isen said.
"Fortunately, people who commit real estate crimes always leave a paper trail that is indelible and allows us to prosecute them years after the fact," he said.
In 2007, District Attorney Ed Jagels said he opposed a proposal to form a specialized unit within his office because there wasn't enough fraud to justify one. At the time, he said such cases could be handled by the office's white collar crime division.
Jagels could not be reached Thursday to comment on the new mortgage fraud unit.
The unit was formed in August of last year. Isen, its sole attorney, will split his time between working on mortgage fraud cases and other matters.
Isen has extensive experience prosecuting mortgage fraud in Kern and San Bernardino counties, said his boss, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Barry Klein.
There is a need for a specialized unit because the area saw a surge in mortgage loan application fraud during the real estate boom, and loan modification fraud skyrocketed after the market meltdown, Klein said.
"We have this money now," he said. "We're going to use those increased resources to go after more of these people."
Kern County supervisors in November 2007 placed a $2 fee on all real estate transactions to fund the investigation and prosecution of real estate fraud.
The fee, which was reauthorized last month, has raised $376,250 to date, according to the Kern County Auditor-Controller's office.
