Another shocker: Dumanis ends one more college fraud probe without charges

Photo: District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis

DA ends probe of land sale to college
San Diego Union Tribune
By Jennifer Vigil
December 14, 2008

The District Attorney's Office has cleared everyone involved in a land sale to the San Diego Community College District that benefited two politically connected developers.

The investigation has been closed, and “no criminal charges are forthcoming against any individual or entity involved in this matter,” District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis wrote in a Thursday letter to the college district.

Dumanis' office looked into a September 2006 real estate deal in which the district paid $1.28 million for a 15th Street duplex for a campus expansion downtown.
Questions arose about the purchase after The San Diego Union-Tribune reported that the developers, Mike Madigan and Paul Nieto, had bought the parcel eight months earlier for $750,000 and used a private trust held by Nieto's father-in-law to sell it to the college district.

Madigan was involved in San Diego's downtown redevelopment efforts, and Nieto is a former president of a Chula Vista homebuilding company and once sat on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority Board.

In correspondence sent to the duplex owners in 2004 and 2005, a real estate broker indicated the developers were speaking on behalf of the college district, a link that investigators found had not been formalized.

Deputy District Attorney Mike Still, who investigated the land transactions, said Madigan, Nieto and their broker may have made misleading statements, but a one-year statute of limitations had expired on any possible misdemeanor charges.

Felony fraud charges also were considered but dismissed as too harsh, Still said.
“We found some misrepresentations on the front end, but they may have been misunderstandings as well,” he said.

Former City Attorney Michael Aguirre investigated the matter and filed a civil suit against the broker. Still said the case was delayed pending the outcome of his investigation...

The district continues to plan construction on 15th Street, part of a $1.5 billion bond-funded renovation and expansion campaign, but more properties must be acquired. Jennifer Vigil: (619) 718-5069; jennifer.vigil@uniontrib.com

Developer Paul Nieto (partner of Mike Madigan) resigns from Airport Authority

Paul Nieto
Since Paul Nieto and his partner Mike Madigan were exposed for trickery regarding land being acquired for San Diego City College, Paul Nieto has been forced out of office. But Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox is still reflexively loyal to developers. She put a construction consultant in Nieto's place.

Mike Madigan
From Voice of San Diego, by Rob Davis: "Nieto Resigns Airport Post"

"Chula Vista developer Paul Nieto resigned this morning from his seat on the San Diego County Regional Airport Authority.

"Nieto, a partner with TMG and the former president of the company that developed Chula Vista's EastLake, has been under scrutiny for profiting off a land deal that he'd claimed he was involved in on behalf of the San Diego Community College District.

"Chula Vista Mayor Cheryl Cox appointed Jack Miller to the authority's board in Nieto's stead. Miller is employed at Gafcon, a San Diego construction consulting firm. The former Navy pilot spent three years managing operations for San Diego County's airport."