No contest plea entered in real estate fraud case

SANTA ROSA – The Sonoma County District Attorney's office said Juan Carlos Alcala of Windsor pleaded no contest to nineteen felony counts and admitted three special allegations for defrauding real estate investors, money laundering and elder fraud.

Mr. Alcala admitted the total loss from his activity exceeded $1 million, the district attorney said.

The charges arose when an undeveloped Healdsburg property owned by Mr. Alcala went into foreclosure and several investors, who had funded mortgages on the property, discovered the mortgages were secured using forged documents and false information. This resulted in an inflated appraisal of the property, which the investors had used in three different real estate transactions.

After the foreclosure was complete and the fraud was reported to law enforcement, Mr. Alcala tried to sell the land to a Sonoma County Sheriff's detective working undercover, officials said. Further investigation revealed Mr. Alcala taken approximately $450,000 from an 80-year-old Sebastopol woman by convincing her to invest in a project that had never occurred, the district attorney said.

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