San Francisco’s financial fraud prosecutors have gotten a boost with a new $1 million federal grant to target mortgage and investment fraud, the district attorney’s office announced Tuesday.
The grant will allow the office to add one prosecutor and two investigators to its special prosecution division and create a new mortgage fraud and investment unit, District Attorney Kamala Harris said.
“My office will now have resources to go after the scam artists, disreputable brokers and other scheming middle men who have been profiting on the misfortune of everyday Americans,” Harris said at a news conference in San Francisco Tuesday.
Harris was joined by San Mateo County District Attorney Jim Fox and Santa Clara County District Dolores Carr.
The three district attorneys noted that California has been hit particularly hard by foreclosures and by financial fraud and expressed support for proposed federal legislation to create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.
