Going Through
The Motions
After
a preliminary audit of the Affordable Housing Program was issued in early 2006,
a committee was evidently formed of personnel from the Auditor, County
Executive, Housing and Community Development and County Counsel offices to
review specific instances of suspected fraud and violations by affordable owners.
From what can be discerned from the public record, which is very little, the
committee meets in private and has issued no report of its findings or of any
action taken.
In
June 2006 this committee or someone in county government, it is unclear
specifically who, made a request of the District Attorney’s Office to conduct
an investigation regarding the Affordable Housing Program. The purported
purpose of the investigation was to take an overall look at alleged violators
of the Affordable Housing Program and to determine if there were any potential
violations of criminal law.
Sounds
good at first blush, sounds like the county was finally getting serious about
holding people who exploited the taxpayer subsidized housing program for personal
gain accountable. No such luck. What followed is a sad commentary on the lack
of commitment or political will of our local government to hold either its own
personnel or dishonest affordable housing owners accountable.
The
District Attorney’s Office, then led by lame duck Thomas Sneedon, who was the
long-time county district attorney, assigned a sole senior investigator to the
project. There is no indication of whether this investigator had any background
in consumer fraud investigations or legal credentials to assess criminal statutes
relating to real estate and financial fraud.
The
Michael Jackson prosecution recently commanded the attention of nearly the
entire staff of the District Attorney’s Office. One would think a scam
involving millions of dollars of real estate, harming all of the lawful
citizens and taxpayers of the county, would warrant a little more serious
attention from the district attorney.
While
labeled an “investigation report,” the document produced is not a report of
investigative findings at all. It is an “investigation” apparently driven by a
predetermined conclusion, filled with unsupported assumptions, opinions and
legal conclusions, all from an investigator not qualified to render such
opinions and conclusions.
The
investigator stated he/she does not believe there is sufficient evidence to
support “even a probable cause allegation of any criminal conduct,” even though
the report admits the affordable housing program was a complete mess with
documents missing, no evidence to prove that lotteries to select applicants
were ever held and the existence of conflicts of interest by county personnel.
Nevertheless, the investigator states further investigation is a waste of time
and money. This is a really surprising statement since later in the report
there are at least two admissions from suspected violators, who to this former
prosecutor, provide an ample basis for charging criminal conduct.
The
investigator purportedly interviewed unnamed members of the public, who the
investigator said had complained about the program. Interestingly, the
investigator did not contact or interview any of the most active public
advocates on this issue, including myself, who possess substantial relevant information
obtained in many hours of investigating wrongdoing in the affordable housing program.
It
was only after four years of demanding that malfeasance in the affordable
housing program be investigated that the Board of Supervisors finally ordered the
County Auditor to conduct a full audit of the program. Up until then, every call
for an investigation by the county of one of its pet “feel good” projects, fell
on deaf ears.
When
approached with evidence of wrongdoing both by county personnel and affordable
housing owners, Ed Moses, the former director of Housing and Development,
refused to do anything to clean up the corrupt program. He instead attacked
those who called for an investigation, and even at one point labeled them “Chicken
Littles.”
Moses
went so far as to use the county’s
Human Relations Commission and threats of filing spurious discrimination
claims against complainants to try to silence them—that sure sounds like
actionable conduct to me. The investigation report says nothing at all about
this gross abuse of government power.
The
preliminary and final audits by the County Auditor’s Office found violation
rates as high as 25 percent of all owners of sale restricted affordable housing
units in the program. Out of approximately 388 remaining units in the program,
this would be almost 100 suspected violators.
Indicative
of the lack of seriousness of the county district attorney’s investigation, the
assigned investigator conducted only telephone interviews of just three suspected
violators. The suspects’ statements for the most part went unchallenged and uncorroborated
by documentary or other evidence.
This
“investigation” of the county’s Affordable Housing Program is an abysmal piece
of investigative work. The new District Attorney, Christine Stanley, should
order it to be re-done properly by persons with expertise in the relevant areas
of law. It is also a prime example of why the county should not be asked to
investigate itself.
The
only conclusion one can draw from the District Attorney’s Office “investigation,”
preceded by the county counsel’s failure to advise to the Board of Supervisors
of the slew of civil law remedies available to hold wrongdoers accountable, is that
there is no sincere interest on the part of the county to hold anyone
responsible for past malfeasance in the Affordable Housing Program. Sadly, it
looks like our government officials are just going through the motions to
silence public demands for accountability.