Prosecutors seek delay in HOA sentencings

Federal prosecutors are moving to push back the sentencings of more defendants in the far-reaching homeowners association investigation.

Justice Department lawyers Charles La Bella and Mary Ann McCarthy filed court papers last week seeking to delay the July sentencing of Denise Keser, a cooperating former community management employee, for eight months.

"The United States anticipates future pleas, indictments and the possibility of one or more trials of co-conspirators and targets," the prosecutors wrote. "These events may allow the defendant the opportunity to provide further cooperation as a witness, including the possibility of testifying at trial."

La Bella told a federal judge in court last week that prosecutors expect to continue presenting evidence to a grand jury in Las Vegas this summer in their bid to charge additional defendants.

Fourteen defendants pleaded guilty last week in the fraud investigation, bringing the number of convicted defendants to 26 in the homeowners association scheme and a related bank fraud scheme at the Courthouse Cafe. A 27th defendant, Arnold Myers, is to plead guilty before U.S. District Judge James Mahan on June 14.

Sentencing for the 14 defendants, who are free on their own recognizance, is set for February.

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 legal, construction and community management contracts at the associations, court documents have said.

U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro rescheduled Keser's sentencing for March 28. The sentencings of 11 other defendants scheduled later in the year also are likely to be pushed back into next year .

Justice Department lawyers have alleged that the conspirators stacked association boards with straw buyers who voted to award them millions of dollars worth of contracts.

Former construction company boss Leon Benzer and the late construction defects lawyer Nancy Quon are alleged to have pulled the strings in the takeover conspiracy. Neither was charged. Quon was found dead in the bathtub of her Henderson condominium on March 20.