Bee Coverage of DA Misappropriating Tax Dollars

[Accountability_checker]

Tuesday 8-10-10 issue of Bee newspaper: Sacramento DA Scully "Stepping Up" against fraud.

How is Scully going to step up? Misappropriate our tax dollars to change her job description?

Here's what the Bee says is happening:

Attorney Jan Scully said "the goal is to "prevent future victims... the unit is also charged now with "educating the community on how to protect themselves."

The article also casually states that Scully's office is taking over the sheriff's job of investigating fraud. Whoa Nelly!

Scully's office has a long history of not prosecuting fraud. Law enforcement has sounded the alarms for over a decade that case files sit on a shelf in the DAs office collecting dust. So, why are we giving Scully's office the investigating role too? They will only not investigate fraud the same way they don't prosecute fraud.

This "educating the public" is funded by a fee imposed on filings at the county recorder's office. Well folks that's a tax. So, our tax dollars are used for the DA to be an "educator" instead of a prosecutor.

When did the role of the district attorney's office become an "educator to prevent crimes" as Scully as made herself?

Hundreds of nonprofit groups around to educate the public about fraud, but DA Scully is using your tax dollars to duplicate the "educating" function of nonprofits.

The Bee's slobbering love affair with DA Scully has reached new heights of nausea. It's like being forced to watch young couples groping each other in public. We're helpless and can only winch and look the other way hoping it ends soon.

And the Bee wonders why its circulation is dropping.

[AyatollahGondola]

Where did the tax come from? state or local?

[Accountability_checker]

taxing the filing of documents at county recorder

In 1994, California Legislature created the Real Estate Fraud Fund. Every time you file any thing with the recorder regarding real estate, you are assessed (taxed the $3 fee) for the fund.

The Bee has ignored numerous requests from law enforcement and fraud victims to investigate how this fund has been used. Do a search of the Bee's archive and all you will find is warm-fuzzy mentions of how the DA is using the funds to "educate" the public.

I have looked at some of the clever accounting, and it still looks suspect that you have things like sunglasses as expenditures. I guess they need them to cover their eyes while turning a blind eye to real estate criminals.

Fraud victims are denied justice, often being told there is no prosecutor in the DA's office who does real estate crimes.

Say what? Where did our tax dollars go? Why do Bee reporters tell fraud victims they can't do the story because its "political."

Notice the Bee never mentions the WJFA web site full of real estate crimes, especially under Scully's watch?

[AyatollahGondola]

I have looked at some of the clever accounting, and it still looks suspect that you have things like sunglasses as expenditures. I guess they need them to cover their eyes while turning a blind eye to real estate criminals?

Where are these expenditure records coming from?

[Accountability_checker]

You do a public records request with the county attorney

because the DA's office gives you the run around.

Here's another interesting element of this story the Bee won't cover.

All government offices are accountable to the County Auditor's office. Yet, if you go there asking for the their annual reports of the funding, they look at you blankly and scratch their heads and try to convince you are on drugs or something because there is no such beast, "or we'd know about it."

It's the best kept secret and county officials are in on it. The DA only writes its annual report with a spread sheet of expenditures, it submits to the county supervisors each year.

What others have asked Bee investigative reporters to look at is, how accurate are the expenditures. If the county auditor is kept out of the loop, then no one is examining receipts, vouchers, to confirm the legitimacy of the accounting, or, if the funds are used for their exact intended purpose, which they are not.

I know of one crime victim that is outraged to learn about the funding because they paid their attorney nearly $5,000 to "educate" a prosecutor in that office that real estate crimes are a federal offense with a minimum of five years in prison. This person went through a decade of a well-known predator doing illegal foreclosures, forged grants, and you name it, while the DA's staff kept telling them that "its not our jurisdiction."

I took the accounting forms I had to one of the consumer reporters at the local TV, who looked at the accounting sheets and said, "I don't see anything wrong."

I said, do you see anything that says "real estate fraud" expenditures? That reporter said, "so, the DA uses the funds to run its office, what's the big deal?"

I've had attorneys say to me, "yeah, its no secret DAs won't touch fraud."

[AyatollahGondola]

If you have some public documents that might be of interest, I suggest offering them up here:

http://publicdocumentdistributors.com/forums/

[Accountability_checker]

Sadly, gave to reporters

who have not returned. Not going to spend anymore time or money.

The media doesn't want to get it.

Ah to blazes with it all. It's like the only ones that get it is other fraud victims and the rest of the world has this, "get over it attitude" and I'm worn out yelling fire as the place scorches to the ground.

Thanks for letting me vent.

[AyatollahGondola]

Oh no! Don't give up. Yes, that's true about only the victims giving a shit. But it is not the sheep you fight for; it is yourself and those like you

I hear that all the time...just move on...get over it...you can't win...etc. Were that true, Scully and her ilk would not win either. it is possible to win, and in the interim, it is very therapeutic

No, no...keep on fighting. It's part of lifes' many inherent rules. Birds must be vigilant for cats, penguins must battle Walrus, every day life is a struggle. When you stop fighting, either you die or become something else's property.
If Scully is a crumb, there may be a way to produce the proof and get her bounced. I had issue with her a few years ago too. All the money she was doling out to Latino education this and that. I'd like to see something happen.
who has your records? Get them back