Personal Finance

Jacob John Cunningham, John D. Silva, Justin Dennis Koelle and Dominic Adam Nolan Cop to Collecting Illegal Fees for Phony Loan Mods

Four men were convicted Wednesday for their roles in a real estate scam that stung hundreds of victims through the fraudulent collection of more than $130,000 in upfront fees for loan-modification services via fake letters with the CitiFinancial or CitiMortgage logos. Jacob John Cunningham, 26, of I ... More >>

Making Home Affordable, Costa Mesa Loan Mod Firm, Allegedly Deceived Ohio Customers

Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine is going after a Costa Mesa loan modification firm accused of charging "significant fees" and then doing little or nothing for customers.The company, Making Home Affordable, has been the subject of 20 complaints filed with DeWine's office.

Cindy Ann Su'a, Manager for Reeling Anaheim Police Union, Accused of Embezzling $360k

They say a couple that strays together, stays together.Cindy Ann and John Su'a, both 46 of Whitter, face arraignment Thursday at the Santa Ana Jail: she for allegedly embezzling $360,000 as the Anaheim Police Association office manager, and he for supposedly--and willfully--failing to file tax retur ... More >>

Shann Mou Lee Faces Up to 3 Years and Nearly $70k in Penalties For Filing False Tax Returns

Under a plea deal, a Garden Grove business owner who built small electronic airplane parts for C5 cargo planes and F18 fighters copped this morning to tax fraud.Shann Mou Lee, 69, of Buena Park, pleaded guilty to a one-count criminal information charging him with subscribing to a false income ta ... More >>

Go Text Yourself

[Hey, You!] Colliding with stupidity on the 55 freeway

Penguin Prison

Detroit Bar

Mark Dell Donne, Ex-CEO, Must Repay $500k to Defunct Government Contractor's 401(k) Plan

The former CEO of an Aliso Viejo electrical contractor has agreed to restore $570,983 in 401(k) payments he'd stiffed 105 company retirement plan participants out of, the U.S. Labor Department announced.San Clemente's Mark Dell Donne, who served as a fiduciary of the plan, already returned $98,748 t ... More >>

Andrew Michael Phalen Gets Year in Jail for Home Loan Modification Scam

Andrew Michael Phalen was sentenced today to a year in jail and five years of formal probation today for his role in a scam that offered home loan modification assistance to struggling mortgage holders across the country. But four of the Mission Viejo 25-year-old's cohorts are looking at much more ... More >>

OC Dream Coalition Holds First-Annual Immigrant Youth Empowerment Forum at UC Irvine

A coalition of Orange County Dream Act advocates will hold the first-annual Immigrant Youth Empowerment Forum at the University of California Irvine this Saturday. The forum consists of a series of workshops dedicated to educating immigrant high school students about how to apply for financial aid a ... More >>

[UPDATED with All-Clear:] "Bomb" Package Left at Social Security Office

​UPDATE, JAN. 17, 3:32 P.M.: The Orange County Sheriff's Department bomb squad gave the all-clear this morning after examining the suspicious package with "bomb" written across it outside the Social Security Administration office in Anaheim.Reassuring: Anaheim Police say the package contained no b ... More >>

Richard and Jolene Engel, High-Flying Society Couple of the '90s, Hid $180 Million in Income

Richard Gardner Engel​In the 1990s, you could not serpentine around a champagne server at a high society soiree in Orange County without bumping into Richard and Jolene Engel. They were everywhere, even landing aboard the P'zazz yacht when the Nordstrom family hosted a private Newport Harbor suppe ... More >>

Frosty Flicks: It's a Wonderful Life

The LAB

Christopher Wright Fox and Curtis James Melone Loan-Mod Prosecution Does Not Surprise Blogger Who Has Dogged Them

​When the California Attorney General last week announced the arrests of Christopher Wright Fox (left) and his partner Curtis James Melone for allegedly collecting more than $6 million from homeowners nationwide for loan modification services that were never performed, Moe Bedard was not surprise ... More >>

Lydia Delrio Montelongo, LA Airport Cop's Wife, Cops to Falsely Claiming She Was Divorced and Taking $118,000 in Public Assistance

​A Fullerton woman is spending nine months in jail, serving five years of probation and paying $118,000 in restitution after pleading guilty to having received that much in public assistance while falsely claiming she was divorced and not financially supported by her husband, a Los Angeles Airport ... More >>

Comedy Juice College Night

Irvine Improv

Iggy Pop, Paco Rabanne's New Poster Boy

​File this under well, at least it's better than endorsing car insurance. According to Women's Wear Daily, Iggy Pop is the new face for Paco Rabanne's latest men's and women's fragrances--called Black XS L'Excès--out in January in France. Music vid director Jonas Akerlund (famous for Lady Gaga's ... More >>

Octomom Nadya Suleman Cries Broke Again

​Despite Celebridate, Celebrity Boxing, a horror movie role, paid interviews with the foreign press and her self-professed financial genius, Octomom Nadya Suleman is crying poor again.The unemployed single mother of 14 whines to Dr. Drew Pinsky that she cannot afford basic home repairs and must wa ... More >>

Jerry Brown Signs Half of California DREAM Act; Illegal Immigrants Now Eligible For Private College Scholarships

​Having made a campaign pledge to do so, Gov. Jerry Brown signed the California DREAM Act yesterday.  Well, half of it.During a town hall meeting at Los Angeles City College, Brown signed AB 130, the part of the two-bill package that gives illegal immigrants who live in California and at ... More >>

Glen Justice, Local Oncologist, Sentenced to 18 Months For Health Care Fraud

​An Orange County oncologist, whose fraudulent health care schemes caused losses of up to $1 million, was sentenced to a year-and-a-half in federal prison yesterday.In a precious paradigm of irony, the 66-year-old doctor who pleaded guilty to five counts of health care fraud is named Glen Justice. ... More >>

Marten Joseph Brandel, Accused Hanger of Noose at Gay-Rights Office and Ugly Police Mugshot Legend

​This week was an especially fruitful one for ugly police mugshots. There are the skinhead San Clemente home invaders. As previously noted, a suspected student loan bilker is certainly no looker. And by shear weight alone, a 300-pound rape suspect had it locked.But then we took a gander at the mug ... More >>

[UPDATED with Sentence:] Were You Ripped Off by Hoang Quoc Tathanhlong, Fake Financial Planner?

​UPDATE, JUNE 15, 12:12 P.M. Westminster's Hoang Quoc Tathanhlong has been sentenced to three years in state prison for lying about being a certified financial planner and stealing more than $650,000 from a widow he met at a funeral home.The 50-year-old, who did make a couple payments to the wido ... More >>

John M. Shanahan: Hooked on Sexual Harassment

[Moxley Confidential] The Newport Beach businessman pays $1.7 million after asking his employee for rough sex

[UPDATED:] Huntington Beach Company Uses 'Toons, Rappers and Twilight Stars to Lure Kids to its Prepaid Debit Cards

​Update, December 22, 11:26 p.m.: 38-year-old Brian Newberry has been developing debit cards for young people for the past 10 years. He actually came from a big bank (which he won't name) that he says wanted to essentially exploit the youth market with high-fee products. From that experience, Newb ... More >>

Arthur Gonzales Diaz, Unlicensed Real Estate Broker, Allegedly Defrauded Latino Clients

​County prosecutors are seeking the public's help in finding other potential victims of a man arraigned today for allegedly defrauding more than $87,000 from Hispanic victims in real estate fraud scheme. Arthur Gonzales Diaz, 56, of Anaheim, is charged with seven felony counts of grand theft and ... More >>

National Cardio Labs Settles Whistleblower Suit for $3.6 Million

​An Orange County heart-monitoring service will pay $3.6 million to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that alleged the company defrauded government health care programs, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Los Angeles announced. National Cardio Labs LLC was based in Santa Ana, Aliso Viejo and then Irvin ... More >>

FBI Raids Irvine-Based Law Firm

Photo by Randall MarquisULG's motto: "Legal services for honest Americans."​Do not give this man your money. Irvine-based loan modification firm, United Law Group, was raided this afternoon by the FBI and Irvine Police.Robert Buscho ​The firm describes itself on its website as one of the largest ... More >>

$3.6 Million Fraud Plot Used Several Mortgages on Same House

Not the home in question but an amazing facsimile.​A married couple from Fountain Valley and a Newport Coast mortgage broker are scheduled to be arraigned in a Santa Ana courthouse this morning for their alleged roles in a $3.6 million fraud scheme that involved several mortgages being taken out o ... More >>

Heath Insurance or Bust: Why You Might Want to Think Twice About Relying on that Student Health Plan

 ​They are nicknamed the "Young Invincibles." Thus tagged by the health insurance industry, they are the demographic of strapping 19- to 29-year-olds who, at 13.7 million strong, constitute the largest group of uninsured in America. Among the least likely to be able to afford coverage, Young ... More >>

Rally Tonight Opposes Obama and Town-Hall Criers in Health-Care Debate

All for one and one for OC Healthcare for All.​OC Healthcare for All and other groups peeved about the current health-care debate march to the Ronald Reagan Federal Building in downtown Santa Ana tonight and rally in support of the following message:Both sides--the ones personified by President Ba ... More >>

Consumer Confidence Reports Reach Opposite Conclusions

​According to Associated Press economics writer Chrstopher S. Rugaber, "Consumer sentiment rose more than expected in August and expectations hit the highest level since the recession began, indications that Americans' pessimism about the economy may be lifting."Rugaber cites findings from the New ... More >>

AG Jerry Brown Goes After OC Mortgage Loan Modifiers

AG Jerry Brown and his suede-denim secret police are coming after OC loan modification companies. ​ California Attorney General Jerry Brown is cracking down on 133 Orange County-based home loan modifiers, reports Orange County Register "Mortgage Insider" Matthew Padilla. Anyone who read Clockwork' ... More >>

Thinking Outside the Box for a Cal State Education

At 7:31 a.m. on the KTLA Morning News, reporter Jennifer Gould was at Cal State Long Beach talking with Students for Quality Education members who'd been camped out since 5 p.m. Sunday to protest tuition and fee increases university board members may implement Tuesday afternoon. To co ... More >>

Even Swanky Hotel Owners Can't Afford Their Mortgage

Sunstone Hotel Investors Inc., a San Clemente-based real estate investment trust, will default on the June mortgage payment for its swanky W Hotel San Diego property and turn over the 258-room downtown hotel to lenders, after failing to lower interest payments.The hotel has been hurt by "significant ... More >>

[Summer Guide] Proposed Theme Park Celebrates OC's Part in Bringing the Global Economy to Its Knees

Pablo Escobar, Other OC Tax Delinquents Snared

Pablo Escobar, now dead and probably not of Huntington Beach.The LA Times reports today that Burt Reynolds, Dionne Warwick and Sinbad are among the 250 folks who owe $143 million in back taxes, according to the California Franchise Tax Board's list of the top state tax delinquents.Orange County may ... More >>

Welcome to the Poorhouse: Problem Makers Become "Solvers"

One reason I find myself in the financial fix I am in is because I took took a gamble. The plan hatched with my mortgage broker was to temporarily pay a low, low mortgage--that did not lower my principal--to free up enough cashflow to pay down my credit-card debt. This would improve my credit score ... More >>

Welcome to the Poorhouse: From My Bank to Your Ears

Every thirteen seconds, an American loses his/her home. In 2008, more than 2.3 million families faced foreclosure. If the government doesn't intervene in a muscular way, an estimated 6 million owners will lose their homes in the next three years. Those sobering stats begin a Nation piece that actual ... More >>

Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine Foreclosures Are Up and Mortgage Delinquencies Are WAY Up

Home foreclosures continue to wrack the Santa Ana-Anaheim-Irvine area, increasing 0.40 percent in December 2008 compared to the previous year. The rate of foreclosures among outstanding mortgage loans rose from 0.90 percent in December '07 to 1.30 percent 12 months later, according to First ... More >>

OC Weekly Not Alone; Village Voice Media Cuts Widespread

As editor Ted B. Kissell's "A Bad Week at the Weekly" post about layoffs at OC Weekly continued (and is continuing) to generate comments, newsroom staffers received a memo about the matter this week from our Village Voice Media overlords. Now, before I reveal what was in the memo, let me itera ... More >>

Holiday Art Sale

Holiday Art Sale

OC Homewreckers Hung Out to Dry

According to a Department of Justice press release and reported by the Register, Charles Head, a 33-year-old from La Habra and several accomplices have been charged with illegal activities purportedly using the latest mortgage scam to come through the pipeline. One can only expect more scams to ... More >>

Venom, Venom

Cobra Starship

Healthy Skepticism

The first thing to notice about Governor Schwarzenegger's plan, which is being billed as a universal healthcare plan, is that it isn't a universal healthcare plan. It's a mandatory health insurance plan. It will not make sure a sick person gets the treatment he or she needs-- the treatments, drugs ... More >>

Is the Medical Malpractice Insurance "crisis" over?

A group called Americans for Insurance Reform has issued a study that concludes there has been a "wholesale decline of medical malpractice insurance rates nationwide" and that the so-called medical malpractice insurance "crisis" is over--whether or not states enacted restrictions on patients such as ... More >>

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