Fourteen Cop Pleas In Conspiracy To Wrestle Control Of Nearly A Dozen HOAs; Racket Sought Influence To Land Lucrative Contracts From Associations

In Las Vegas, Nevada, the Las Vegas Review Journal reports:

• Fourteen more defendants pleaded guilty Thursday in the sweeping investigation into fraud and corruption at Las Vegas Valley homeowners associations. It was one of the largest group plea deals ever engineered in Nevada by federal prosecutors. Yet the prosecutors made it clear in court they're not yet done.
  
  
• Halfway into the group plea of the 14 defendants, Charles La Bella, a deputy chief of the Justice Department's Washington-based Fraud Section, told U.S. District Judge James Mahan that he planned to continue presenting evidence this summer to a federal grand jury. The goal is to obtain indictments against still more defendants, La Bella said.
  
  
• Prosecutors are looking to charge as many as a dozen more co-conspirators in the scheme to take control of nearly a dozen homeowners associations between 2003 and 2009.
  
  
• More than $8 million was funneled through secret bank accounts to fund the scheme, which allowed the conspirators to land lucrative legal, construction and community management contracts at the associations, prosecutors revealed in court documents Thursday.

For more, see Fourteen more plead guilty in HOA fraud, corruption case.

For the U.S. Justice Department press release, see Fourteen Defendants Plead Guilty for Their Roles in Scheme to Fraudulently Control Home Owners Associations in Las Vegas.