Antitrust Feds Tack On Obstruction Of Justice Charge Against Accused Foreclosure Sale Bid Rigging Suspect In Connection With Alleged Deletion Of Electronic Records Related To Case, Software Installation Designed To Prevent Review, Recovery Of Destroyed Records

From the U.S. Department of Justice (Washington, D.C.):

• A federal grand jury in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento [] returned a superseding indictment charging Andrew B. Katakis, of Danville, Calif., with obstruction of justice related to a federal investigation into conspiracies to rig bids and commit mail fraud at public real estate foreclosure auctions held in San Joaquin County, Calif., the Department of Justice announced.
  
  The remaining allegations are unchanged from the original indictment, which was returned by a federal grand jury on Dec. 7, 2011. The pre-existing counts charge Katakis, Donald M. Parker, Anthony B. Joachim and W. Theodore Longley with conspiring with other unnamed co-conspirators to rig bids and commit mail fraud when purchasing selected properties at public real estate foreclosure auctions. Wiley C. Chandler, another real estate investor who was also charged in the original indictment, pleaded guilty on Feb. 24, 2012.
  
  The added charge alleges that after Katakis received a letter notifying him that a federal grand jury had subpoenaed his bank account, he deleted and caused others to delete electronic records and documents related to the conspiracies.
  
  The superseding indictment alleges that Katakis also installed and caused others to install and use a software program that overwrote deleted electronic records and documents so that they could not be viewed or recovered.

For the Justice Department press release, see Northern California Real Estate Investor Indicted on Additional Charge (Superseding Indictment Adds Obstruction of Justice to Bid-Rigging and Mail Fraud Charges).