Attorney General Kamala D. Harris Convenes Regional Law Enforcement Officers in Santa Barbara

>>ATTORNEY GENERAL KAMALA D. HARRIS: I'm very proud to stand here with the leaders of law enforcement from these three great counties of California. We convened today a Zone meeting. This is Zone 1A, and it was a meeting of the leaders of law enforcement for these three counties, closed door meeting, where we discussed all that is about the best practices of our profession. We had an opportunity to have a conversation about the challenges that we currently face, and overall it was also about a clear dedication and re-dedication of everyone in that room's commitment to public safety. As I do my work out of Sacramento, I can tell you that there is a lot happening in terms of the State shifting responsibilities to the counties, and in large part it is because there is a sense that it is at the county level where we can do better work than the State has been able to do, but this is presenting extreme challenges to our county and city officials, and in particular our sheriffs and our D.A.s and others. It is presenting challenges because they are now, with fairly short notice, going to be taking on the responsibility of housing and then transitioning low-level offenders back into the community. But I can say that from where I stand, our... our... we've got good folks at the table, smart folks at the table who are prepared to lead and prepared to engage in innovation, also understanding that innovation carries with it risk, carries with it the risk that when we roll something out, it may not be perfect the first time. And so we are here today, and I am here as the Attorney General, to support these leaders and to say that we know that they are going to do great work and we will stand by them as the challenges they face are being met and we will move forward. We also talked specifically about what we have been dealing with in terms of the crisis that has occurred in California as a result of the foreclosure crisis and the mortgage crisis. I want to specifically thank Greg Totten for being a member of my transition team and a co-chair of the transition team that addressed this issue. In large part, it was out of the work of that group that we created at the California Department of Justice the Mortgage Fraud Strike Force, which we rolled out earlier this year. In that division of my Office, which is a combination of our Consumer Fraud, Corporate Fraud, and Criminal focus, we have been prosecuting a number of cases that relate to the predators who are out there taking advantage of homeowners who are facing foreclosure, and they range from brokers to lawyers, and it has been the work of focusing on how we can bring the best and fair relief and a fair deal to California as a result of the activities of the nation's banks. As many of you know, we were a part of a multi-state discussion that lasted for several months and, in the last couple of weeks, we made the decision to pull California out of that and go our own and independent way, which is going to include dealing with what should happen in terms of a fact-finding and truth-finding mission but is also focused on the reality that for bad behaviors there must be consequence and accountability and restitution. So, I am proud to stand here with leaders of law enforcement and former colleagues and thank them for everything that they have done, and I'm going to next introduce Santa Barbara District Attorney Joyce Dudley who has been one of the hosts for us for the Zone meeting today, and then we will introduce the rest of our colleagues. Joyce. >>DISTRICT ATTORNEY JOYCE E. DUDLEY: I'm thrilled to have the Attorney General here with us in Santa Barbara County. I first heard of Attorney General Harris when she was a renowned career prosecutor in Alameda County. I first met Attorney General Harris when she was the District Attorney of San Francisco and she invited me to come to San Francisco to speak at the first hate crime conference, specializing in the panic defense. Attorney General Harris was then and continues to be creative, compassionate and resolute in her ensuring that all of Santa Barbara, all of the State of California, that everyone experiences justice for all. Recently, Senior Deputy District Attorney Mary Barron, who is also here with us today, worked very closely with Attorney General Harris' Office in filing charges against two nursing assistants who are alledged to have sexually abused two residents in our local facility. And a few months ago, Attorney General Harris made sure that her Office took on one of the extremely difficult, complex, cross-jurisdictional real estate fraud cases that we had here in Santa Barbara County. I mention these two cases, but we have had constant contact with her Office, especially our local Department of Justice, and we are constantly appreciative of their collaborative efforts in terms of keeping our County safe, and they do so under the extraordinary leadership of Attorney General Harris. So, once again, thank you for coming to Santa Barbara County. >>ATTORNEY GENERAL HARRIS: Thank you. And next it's my pleasure to introduce District Attorney Totten. >>DISTRICT ATTORNEY GREGORY D. TOTTEN: Well, this has been a terrific meeting and we are indeed delighted to have Attorney General Kamala Harris here in Santa Barbara County and the neighboring counties of San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties. I can tell you that this issue of real estate fraud that was discussed at length today, I am grateful as a district attorney that in my jurisdiction, we are ranked 20th in the nation of metropolitan communities with a real estate foreclosure problem. Last year, there were 6500 notices of defaults filed in Ventura County. We're on a pace to have a similar number of notice of defaults filed this year. One in 210 houses are in foreclosure in Ventura County, and so it is impacting homeowners, it is impacting our economy, and it is most certainly impacting the health and well-being of the real estate industry. So, I'm particularly grateful for the leadership role that Kamala Harris has taken on this vitally important issue here in California. I was delighted to serve on her transition committee, and several days ago, I read that she had walked out of this meeting involving finance institutions that were negotiating to try to settle litigation that all 50 states' attorneys general are involved in. She walked away from the table, and I cannot overemphasize how courageous and how important a decision that was. This was a meeting of CEO's of some of the largest banking institutions in the world, CEO's who wanted to sell California short, who did not want to address the seriousness, the law enforcement issue that is at stake in this litigation, and I'm thankful that the Attorney General left that meeting because she recognizes it's a law enforcement issue. For those of us that are prosecuting these cases and are dealing with these issues, our major challenge is the problem is not going away. What started out as a problem involving things like fradulent income statements, fradulent appraisals, straw buyers and subprime mortgage instruments has now morphed into a much broader and much more complex foreclosure rescue scams. And in my community, my community is very diverse. The biggest victims of these foreclosure scams are monolingual Spanish homeowners, in many cases who have owned their homes for generations, and they're being victimized by these scam artists who promise them to work with their bank, take their money, provide no services, and ultimately take their property. And when the property goes into foreclosure, they file a bankruptcy notice and evict these long-term homeowners. Our biggest challenge is dealing with these cases. A year ago, we had 146 open investigations in Ventura County. Today, we have nearly 200. The problem is growing, and I'm looking forward to working with the Attorney General to find a dedicated resource funding stream so that we can appropriately address this problem on a statewide basis. And, again, I thank Kamala Harris for your leadership in this area. >>ATTORNEY GENERAL HARRIS: Thank you, Greg. And finally I want to recognize and ask to... share a few words the great Sheriff of Santa Barbara. >>SHERIFF-CORONER BILL BROWN: Well, thank you very much. We were delighted today to host a Zone meeting that the Attorney General puts on. She puts eight of them on throughout California. We were delighted as the Tri-Counties representing Santa Barbara, Ventura and San Luis Obispo to have her come here and share some time with us. We had a very meaningful and productive session this morning, speaking about a number of issues as you've heard. Mortgage fraud, which is something that's extremely important, something that affects all of those who live in our community, in one way or another, and something that she has taken a true lead on, and something that we salute her for doing that with her Mortgage Strike, uh... Mortgage Strike Team. We also talked about the problem of transnational gangs and how that is becoming a much bigger issue. It's affecting, not only our country, but countries as well, and what we can do to work together to try to address that scourge. And we also had Secretary Matt Cate here from the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, talking about the realignment process that we in the Sheffiff's Office are front and center on, working with the State for this transfer of responsibilities for lower-level felon inmates who are now going to be housed and supervised at the county level, rather than at the State level as had been done before. These are very challenging and complicated times for all of us, and I think we came away from today's meeting with a firm understanding that in order for us to get through them successfully we have to continue to partner, collaborate and work together to pool our resources and address some of these difficult issues that are likely to continue to challenge us into the future. But we're just glad that Kamala Harris is carrying on the tradition in the Attorney General's Office of having a very strong working relationship with local law enforcement, and we're proud to partner with her and her team as she does that.