Redman Ordered to Face Trial

Ten years after Marshall Redman allegedly began to swindle mostly Spanish-speaking investors in land deals in the high desert, and two years after he was first charged with fraud, the 69-year-old developer has finally been ordered to trial.

Redman was held to answer 29 charges of grand theft, fraud and forgery at a preliminary hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on Wednesday.

A trial would cap years of criminal investigation into land deals that authorities say involve 2,500 buyers, dozens of whom lived for years in makeshift homes with no water, power or telephone connections on raw land they bought from Redman. If convicted on all charges, Redman could be sentenced to up to eight years in prison.

It took several years--and 100 complaints--before state and local authorities investigated. Even after criminal charges were filed in 1996, an earlier court case designed to repay buyers bogged down in delays and then was derailed when a court-appointed trustee named to straighten out the legal morass allegedly misspent $500,000.

Five alleged victims testified this week that it was not until after they bought land from Redman that they learned that it had not been legally subdivided or sold to them, and that it was illegal to build houses there. Two notaries public testified that they had improperly notarized title documents for Redman.

“They picked new, Spanish-speaking immigrants . . . the families where both the mother and the father are working two jobs to make a life for their children,” said C.M. “Bud” Starr, a Kern county prosecutor who filed a civil suit against Redman in 1994.

“They took the best of that immigrant class and took their money and traded them a handful of sand.”

To make matters worse, the court-created fund designed to help the victims lost $500,000 after a court-appointed receiver, Donald Henry, allegedly misspent $1 million.

Henry was insured for only half of that amount, and he is believed to be hiding in Australia.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, who represents the remote community of Hi Vista where Redman sold land, decried what he called the “pathetic snail’s pace of the courts,” which he said has doubly victimized Redman’s customers.

“I’m appalled that it takes years to have these cases adjudicated,” he said, “and it adds to the victims’ plight when the court receiver rips off the same victims that Redman was alleged to have been ripping off.”

In response to the recent disclosures about Henry, the receiver, Antonovich said he would ask for an audit at next Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting of the receivership programs run by county courts.

“You have a victim who goes to court to have those issues addressed, and the court steps in with a person who perpetuates an additional fraud on these victims,” Antonovich said. “When he’s finally exposed, he leaves town. The courts need to have an audit in place to ensure that receivers are doing their jobs.”

Redman’s attorney, Harland Braun, pointed to Henry as the culprit.

“The only injury here,” Braun declared, “was perpetrated by the court,” Braun said. Redman, he said, was fully prepared to pay his victims back, until the court took his money away and Henry misspent it.

Braun also accused Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti of engaging in a politically motivated prosecution of Redman, who he said had already reached a settlement with Kern County and the city of Los Angeles.

What the Redman case is really about, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Sullivan, is fraud.

“It displays a serious pattern of defrauding mostly minority investors,” said Sullivan, who heads the district attorney’s major fraud division and spoke for Garcetti in response to Braun’s contention.

The scam, Deputy Dist. Atty. Tom Wenke told Superior Court Judge Stephen Marcus on Wednesday, was to sell raw land, that was not subdivided, to victims without telling them that it was illegal to build there.

In addition, he said, buyers were typically told that they owned all of a parcel, when in fact they were really part owners with other victims.

The hearing was remarkably short--just 1 1/2 days--considering that it was two years in the making. Braun filed several motions to dismiss the case, and repeatedly delayed the preliminary hearing, partly in hope of reaching a plea agreement.

Braun argued at the hearing--as he said he would at trial--that Redman relied on his lawyer, who had advised that the developer’s method for selling the land was legal.

Redman’s lawyer, Braun said, erroneously advised the developer that he could legally avoid filing required disclosure documents by selling just four lots at a time from a particular parcel.

Redman’s reliance on legal advice, Braun argued, proves that he did not intend to commit a crime.

But the strongest fireworks on Wednesday were not between the expected adversaries--the prosecution and the defense--but between Braun and Marcus, the judge.

“Have you got off your soapbox yet?” Marcus snapped at one point, as Braun pushed to be allowed to re-interview a witness about Redman’s reliance on his lawyer.

“No,” responded Braun, and continued his argument.

“I’m not interested in long-winded speeches,” Marcus said, cutting him off.

Redman will be arraigned April 15.