TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Wrongdoers in the Crisp & Cole case have grown complacent. The FBI, meanwhile, is content to take its time. When finally an indictment comes down, there will be great surprise -- and private relief.

These are the observations of a man who knows the Crisp & Cole saga as well or better than anyone else: private investigator Harold Raymond.

A former New Hampshire police officer turned Bakersfield businessman, Raymond was hired late last year by Fremont Reorganizing Corp., the former subprime lender now suing dozens of individuals connected to Crisp, Cole & Associates, the disgraced Bakersfield real estate company. The private investigator has since interviewed more than 45 people in the case, some of them several times, in one-on-one sessions totaling more than 100 hours.

Raymond has a uniquely compelling perspective on a case that this week took a sharp turn for the dramatic. On Monday, a loan officer who worked for Crisp & Cole for more than a year, Jerald Allen Teixeira, pleaded guilty to participating in mortgage fraud. And while he now faces up to 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000, he was offered leniency in exchange for his promise to assist federal prosecutors in a high-profile case at least three years in the making.

The waiting game

Now Raymond, who is finished with his work for Fremont but expects to be called to testify in civil as well as possibly criminal cases relating to Crisp & Cole, said he thinks the time has come for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to finish up its work. Because until it does, he said, there are plenty of people who will get no rest.

"The worst thing in life is fear of the unknown," he said.

That extends from a "handful" of ringleaders in the case -- individuals who willfully committed fraud -- to the many people working under them who broke the law only because they either were intimidated or they needed a job, Raymond said.

But no news can be good news, and the longer the investigation takes (already two years have passed since FBI and IRS agents raided 13 local Crisp & Cole-related properties), the more some people involved are thinking there will be no indictment, he said.

Hope as these people may, he said, the FBI is merely going about its job methodically, sifting through reams of documents seized in the raids. The agency is understaffed, under no political pressure here and intent on avoiding mistakes, he said.

FBI officials have declined to comment on their progress in the case. And assistant U.S. attorneys working on the case refuse to estimate how much longer they may need, saying only that they continue to move forward.

But this week's plea deal came with a court document that for the first time lays out the government's allegations: that four Crisp & Cole employees -- principals David Crisp and Carl Cole, Chief Financial Officer Sneha Mohammadi and office manager Julie Farmer -- directed staff to provide false information and leave out important facts in mortgage loan applications that would not have been approved if full and accurate data had been provided.

Similar allegations were the subject of inquiries by the state Department of Real Estate, which last year revoked the real estate licenses of Crisp and Cole. Such accusations also have been raised by Fremont, which sees Teixeira's plea as a validation of sorts.

"It falls in line with everything we've been saying in the complaint, and I'm sure more is going to come out as Mr. Teixeira meets with authorities," said Fremont attorney Jim Petros.

What's next

Petros said he was nonetheless surprised by the plea agreement because government prosecutors have been keeping their investigation "close to the vest."

That's typical, said Rex Perschbacher, a professor at the University of California at Davis School of Law not involved in this case.

"They don't want anything in the civil case to risk any aspect of the criminal case, which is much more sensitive," Perschbacher said.

Criminal cases usually have tighter timelines because of the constitutional right to a speedy trial, he said. Yet even with that issue looming, don't expect the federal case to speed along, Perschbacher said.

"They like to get a lot of pleas from witnesses at the lower levels to build a case against the people at the top, so it's not uncommon for it to take a long time to get to the key players," he said.

It should be interesting to watch, Raymond said. If and when federal indictments are handed down, he said, people's names will come up that are not now publicly connected to the case. There will be "lots of surprises," he said.

As for Teixeira's big news, Raymond said it was a wise move to seek out the FBI and reach a plea deal with federal prosecutors.

"It's too bad that a bunch of the others don't do the same thing -- that they need to do the same thing, I should say," he said.

Even so, Raymond said he doubts any further plea agreements are forthcoming, because with Teixeira's testimony and all the seized documents, the feds should have all they need to prove "humongous, gigantic" mortgage fraud in Bakersfield.

Really, there's only one thing left to answer, he said. "Question is, where did all the money go?"

His guess: "In the wind. It's like lighting up a $50 Cuban cigar."

-- Californian staff writer Steven Mayer contributed to this report.