By Rebecca Rosen Lum, Times staff writer
Neighbors say they wish Irene Feaster could spend these years quietly enjoying her sunny North Richmond home.
Instead, at 75, after surviving breast cancer, the loss of a beloved child, and decades of bone-tiring work, Feaster is counting the days to her eviction.
During a lengthy hospitalization, Feaster lost her home to foreclosure.
Unhappily, she has plenty of company: Foreclosures are on the rise everywhere. In Contra Costa County, they've risen by more than 21 percent this year; in Alameda County, by more than 32 percent.
But enough irregularities have occurred in the short, strange real estate history of Irene Feaster's house to convince her she has been wronged.
Months after the Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office closed the case insisting no crime had been committed, Richmond police are actively investigating a possible fraud in connection with the home's sale.
That sale kicked off three years of real estate transactions so convoluted it is taking police investigators days to sort them all out, Richmond police Detective Alvin Parker said.
More painful still for Feaster is that none of the legal agencies entrusted with protecting seniors has been willing to take her case to court.
"I'm not the smartest person, but I'm not the dumbest either," she said.
"I know I've been ripped off. I know I should be living better than I am."
Hercules resident Jay Daniel Wynn saw the published note of a foreclosure auction and bid on Feaster's home shortly after she left the hospital. She was treated for congestive heart failure and anemia in December 1999.
At the time, Feaster owed $47,000 on a home loan. She said Wynn pressured her into signing over the four-bedroom, 2-bath home for $10,000.
Its market value: $260,000.
"He said I don't have but one choice," she recounted. "Child, I was so weak I couldn't even hold my head up off my chest to look him in the face."
Records show Feaster's home changed hands five times in three years. Loans of as much as $138,000 have been taken out, some in her name. And to date, she has yet to receive the full $10,000 she was promised.
Wynn sold the property for $151,000 to Paul Ferreira of Santa Clara, who has been receiving mail at Feaster's address for two years but has reportedly turned up in person only twice.
Neither man is a licensed real estate broker, according to the California Department of Real Estate. Neither could be reached for comment.
Ferreira appears to have sold the house twice -- most recently to Premium Investments, LLC, of Oakland, which has since opted out of the deal.
"We were looking at buying it, but there were some complications with the previous owner," said Vern Kelley, a licensed broker and managing partner of Premium Investments. "I turned the property back over to him."
Meanwhile, Ferreira has filed to evict Feaster, charging her with breaking and entering the home.
Feaster, her grown son, Thomas, and neighbors attest that Feaster has lived in the home continuously since she bought it in June 1972.
With a history of breast cancer, congestive heart failure, and diabetes, Feaster, who uses a wheelchair, would be incapable of breaking into anything, they say.
"This resembles a very common swindle," said real estate attorney Josh Genser. "I call it a swindle, because the person on the receiving end winds up with nothing. It's called, 'You sign over your house to me, and I'll rent it back to you or let you live there.' People don't understand they have lots and lots and lots of rights in a foreclosure."
Lawyers agree there's nothing new about seniors coming out on the wrong end of reverse mortgages, predatory home loans and foreclosure scams.
The Bay Area real estate market is raising the stakes. Those who have been in their homes for 30 years or more, like Feaster, have seen them skyrocket in value. Cash poor and house rich, they are increasingly the targets of financial abuse.
In the kind of transaction Genser describes, the owner may escape homelessness for the time being, but has lost all the home's equity.
And he or she may sink into even deeper debt if the new owner takes out loans in the original owner's name, then defaults on them.
"She's frankly lucky there hasn't been a second foreclosure," Genser said. "Unfortunately, this happens all the time."
While police investigate the home's real estate history, a court date has been set for Monday on Feaster's eviction, and she expects to go alone. Feaster has yet to meet the lawyer who is
interested in taking her case.
'Close the file'
"Contra Costa County has zero tolerance for elder abuse, and we are very proud of that," said deputy district attorney Dana Filkowski, who heads up the elder abuse unit.
The District Attorney's Office declined to press charges of financial elder abuse after receiving a complaint on Feaster's behalf "about four or five months ago," said senior deputy district attorney Jim Sepulveda.
"I told (the investigator) to close the file," Sepulveda said. "I didn't see any crime. She knew what she was doing. It appeared to me she got what she bargained for."
With more than 1,000 complaints or referrals flooding the office each year, he could not afford to press a case that was "one of the marginal ones," he said.
"I feel sorry for the lady, but I have to make a decision whether to let my investigator continue to devote her time to this or to move onto investigating another crime," he said.
The Contra Costa County District Attorney's Office has received extra funding to pursue cases of financial elder abuse.
The unit fields 70 to 80 complaints a year. It has logged convictions in 14 cases so far this year; 13 are pending.
Cases like Feaster's "are some of the most difficult cases for us," Filkowski said. "When is it bad judgment and when was there a crime committed? We can all agree that putting a gun to someone's head and saying 'Sign this' is undue influence. But 'using too much influence' is not in the penal code."
But others contacted by the Times say the speedway of this home's recent real estate history is dotted with enough red flags to tip off any investigator.
Medical records indicate that at the time of the sale to Wynn, Feaster suffered from diabetes, congestive heart failure, anemia and early-stage dementia. She walked out of the hospital against doctors' orders in a panic to stave off the foreclosure. Yet Pat Farrell, the District Attorney's Office investigator, reported Feaster had been of sound mind when she signed away her home.
"To me this is clearly a case where a criminal investigation should take place," said David Brown, a former deputy district attorney and senior partner of Len Tillem Associates, a Sonoma County law firm specializing in elder rights.
"Unfortunately, D.A.s are not very good at white collar criminal prosecution," Genser said. "They're great at prosecuting burglary. They may have one person in the department that understands these kinds of cases. They don't have the resources to take on all the people who run these scams."
Although lawyers say a case like this can be confounding to unravel, Chris Forsythe, an investigator from the District Attorney's Office's elder abuse unit, said that in the end, a fraudulent real estate transaction can be undone through a legal notice called a "lis pendens" -- which literally means litigation is pending. A lis pendens on a real estate title is notice that a judgment in a pending legal action could take priority over other transactions, and can impede the sale of a property.
With the population aging, and foreclosures on the rise, more seniors risk falling prey to bad deals.
That's what prompted Assemblyman Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, to draft a bill last year to recover funds and freeze assets seized in cases of suspected financial elder abuse within 48 hours of a report.
The bill sailed through the Legislature on a 75-2 vote, but was vetoed in October 2001 by Gov. Gray Davis, who said it would burden the state's general fund.
Simitian cited recent estimates that predict the number of seniors over age 65 will double in the coming 30 years, and market reports indicating persons over 50 control at least 70 percent of the nation's household net worth.
"These two trends indicate the likelihood for continued growth in the number and severity of the financial abuse crimes involving the elderly," he said.
Uncertain funding
Changes in state law have made it easier for prosecutors to go after those who prey on the elderly, even without Simitian's bill. They include:
* The Elder and Dependent Adults Protection Act, which allows
out-of-court and videotaped testimony;
* Unfair Business Practices Act, which prohibits misleading people;
* Truth-in-lending laws, which require full disclosure of terms.
Those who work with seniors say one of the most important legislative changes took place three years ago, when passage of a state Senate bill provided relief to cash-starved county Adult Protective Services agencies throughout the state.
Funding to the tune of $72 million statewide enabled APS bureaus to add staff, expand from a 9-to-5 day to 24 hours, and manage cases actively, providing victimized seniors with needed services.
Now, the agencies have the authority to freeze all assets in a case of suspected financial elder abuse, said division manager Linda Anderson.
"We stop the bleeding, then move in and see what happened," she said.
The bill required many more people to report suspected financial elder abuse, including clergy, nurses and doctors. It also enabled and encouraged counties to form "Fast Teams" of district attorneys, probate officials, social workers, banking executives and others to resolve egregious cases speedily.
In 1997, the agency received 491 requests for help. Last year, the number had soared to 1,600.
Fortunately, state funding three years ago enabled APS to go from 2.1 employees to 14 and meet the challenge.
"I think we have a very good program," Anderson said. "Now, our funding is in jeopardy because of the state budget. They are talking at the state level about taking 20 percent or more of our budget, and we already took a 20 percent cut."
A spokesman for the Legislative Analyst in Sacramento said money is likely to be siphoned off the newest programs first. This one qualifies.
'A classic case'
But neither programs nor concern for seniors has helped Feaster keep her home.
Feaster eventually received a check for $6,000 of the promised $10,000. She tried to obtain senior housing but was denied because records showed she had paid off the home.
She also learned a second check to her for $4,000 turned up. After a long series of phone calls, she got to see a photocopy of it. Her signature had been forged, she said.
"This is obviously a classic case," said attorney and senior rights specialist Brown. "This third party is a bona fide purchaser. That person is usually protected. But there are civil remedies. It's clearly a case of elder financial abuse."
In recent days, Feaster tacked a brightly colored sheet over her front window. It blocks her view of the front yard, and a detested "For Sale" sign Paul Ferreira planted in the ground several weeks ago.
A friend of Feaster's who took her case to the District Attorney's Office only to have it rejected said the experience has been "an eye-opener in people's lack of compassion."
"I went to all these agencies, even churches, and they all threw their hands up," he said.
"We have letters from doctors saying she was in no shape to make these kinds of decisions at the time when she got out of the hospital.
The system itself is failing this lady. If they're not there for this, what are they there for?"
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