U.S. Rep. Laura Richardson's rundown Sacramento house, which became the scourge of the neighborhood and a sore point with an investor who thought he had bought it out of foreclosure, has drawn the interest of a House ethics panel.
The Office of Congressional Ethics contacted real estate investor James York, who bought Richardson's house at a foreclosure auction last year, only to have Washington Mutual take it back after he had recorded the deed and return the house to the congresswoman.
The office also has interviewed at least two of the Long Beach Democrat's Sacramento neighbors, asking about their efforts -- and their expenses -- to tidy up the front- and backyards of Richardson's two-story house. The city declared the house a public nuisance on one occasion and "blighted" on another.
Leo Wise, staff director and chief counsel of the ethics office, said its policy was to neither confirm nor deny investigations. He said House members are notified when their activities are reviewed.
Richardson's office declined comment. "We can't comment on conversations involving others that we haven't been a part of," her press secretary, Michael Eagle, said in an e-mail.
The independent Office of Congressional Ethics was created last year to answer critics who said the House was reluctant to investigate its own members. Its board consists of eight members, half appointed by the House speaker and half by the minority leader. They cannot be federal employees or lobbyists.
Among the members is former congresswoman and L.A. County Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke. She declined to comment about Richardson.
If the panel determines there should be further investigation, it can turn its findings over to the House Ethics Committee.
Richardson bought the house in the tree-lined upper-middle-class Curtis Park neighborhood for $535,000 in early 2007 after she was elected to the Assembly. She already owned two houses, one in her Long Beach district and the other in San Pedro. She has defaulted six times on both homes.
After serving briefly in the Assembly, Richardson was elected to Congress in a special election later and moved out of the Sacramento neighborhood nearly two years ago.
The Sacramento house went into foreclosure in early 2008. Richardson also owed about $9,000 in property taxes at the time.
York bought the house in May 2008 for $388,000 and recorded the deed. He sent in a crew and began remodeling, to the joy of neighbors.
