A West Hills woman — who was convicted in 2002 of charges stemming from the theft of insurance proceeds meant for two young men who wound up being shot to death in Inglewood — pleaded not guilty Thursday to nearly three dozen new felony counts stemming from an alleged real estate fraud scheme.
Angela Fawn Wallace, a 58-year-old former attorney, is facing a total of 162 counts, including grand theft, identity theft, forgery and money laundering in two separate cases, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office.
Wallace allegedly befriended elderly homeowners and located residential properties that had been owned by people who had died and then falsified documents in order to get her names placed on the buildings’ titles between June 2014 and August 2018, according to Deputy District Attorney Walter Mueller.
The alleged scheme targeted six properties in Los Angeles County and affected two dozen victims, including property owners, estates, trusts, investment companies, property management companies and notaries, who lost a combined $2.4 million, according to the prosecutor.
She is also accused of stealing $800,000 from an elderly victim’s stock portfolio and other accounts.
The case against Wallace was filed last July. Ninety additional counts have been added since then, including the most recent batch of 35 new charges.
Wallace was convicted in December 2002 of grand theft of personal property, forgery and perjury involving a $380,000 life insurance policy that was owed to Howard Byrdsong, 20, and his brother, Jontrae, 18, after their mother, a police officer, Shiree Arrant, died of natural causes.
The two brothers were killed in June 2001 by a man dressed as a postal worker, who knocked on the door of the Inglewood home where they were staying after their mother’s death.
Timothy Mack — who was tried with Wallace and convicted of grand theft and perjury — was subsequently charged in July 2005 with orchestrating the killings of the Byrdsong brothers, along with the April 2000 revenge murder of Norman Fields in a Los Angeles shopping center parking lot in a crime that authorities said was not connected to the Byrdsong slayings.
All three killings were carried out by Waymond Jackson, who at the time was the boyfriend of one of Mack’s nieces, Deputy District Attorney Ron Goudy said. Jackson was shot to death in October 2001, but police did not know if his killing was connected to the three homicides, according to Goudy.
Mack, who lived in Marina del Rey, wanted the brothers dead because Howard Byrdsong went to the District Attorney’s Office to report the theft, Goudy said.
Mack was convicted in March 2006 of the three killings and was sentenced the following month to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
After Wallace was convicted and sentenced to state prison on the theft case involving the Byrdsong brothers, she was subsequently convicted in three other cases on charges including grand theft, conspiracy to commit a crime and subornation of perjury, according to a criminal complaint filed last year.
She could face up to 81 years and 10 months in state prison if convicted of the latest charges, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
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