At the urging of Occupy Santa Barbara protesters, District Attorney Joyce Dudley sent a letter to Attorney General Kamala Harris asking her to form a statewide task force composed of DA offices to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing on the part of lending institutions leading up to and during the foreclosure crisis. Harris recently announced that she would join several other states in a settlement with five major banks but made sure that California could still sue on several grounds. While Dudley’s letter says her “investigations have revealed evidence of potentially widespread abuses of homeowners,” her office has not yet found a case against a bank it is willing to prosecute.
