Investigators are concentrating on fingerprint samples to determine if Chong Lo is Ester C.S. Chu, a Hawaii real estate saleswoman who pleaded guilty to tax evasion in 1988, the San Francisco Examiner reported yesterday.
Lo was arrested July 27, just days before President Clinton was to make an appearance before her group, the Lotus Fund. The event was canceled and the White House later said Clinton never confirmed the appearance. Lo resigned from the fund.
Lo was charged with bank and mail fraud in connection with her work as a mortgage broker in 1990-91. She remains in North County Jail in Oakland, where she is being held without bond.
Upon her arrest, Lo was reported to have multiple aliases, birth dates and Social Security numbers.
California Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and other politicians returned Lotus Fund donations after Lo's arrest, although the allegations were not directly connected to the group. The Examiner quoted Foster City resident Richard Mar, who had also worked as a mortgage broker in Hawaii, as confirming Chu and Lo were the same person.
"I know Ester and she told me she's the same person," Mar said. "I said, 'Hey, Ester!'" She said 'Quiet, quiet, I don't want anybody to know I'm Ester.'"
Ester C.S. Chu lost her Hawaii real estate license in 1987 after being in the business for at least 10 years.
In 1989 she was a Las Vegas resident, appearing in federal court there on income tax evasion charges. She was sentenced to five years' probation after pleading guilty to failure to pay taxes on $291,848 income from 1981.
Both the termination of her license and the tax problems stemmed from a time when Chu was a general partner in Kona Pacific Partners, a condominium development in Kailua-Kona on the Big Island, and managing partner of Aloha Surf Partners, involved in converting a Waikiki hotel into a resort condominium.
Several complaints were filed against her with the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs.
Charges heard in a 1985 state administrative hearing also included claims that Chu failed to refund security deposits and made misrepresentations about potential profits from time-sharing, resales and mortgage payments.
Chu was ordered to pay a $5,000 fine and received five years' probation. She also was ordered not to work in the real estate business again without the government's permission. But records show that Lo was working in real estate in San Francisco within months, the Examiner said.
Christine Rutkowski, executive of the Hawaii Real Estate Commission, said Chu's license and that of Ester Chu Realty Inc. were revoked in September 1987 based on disciplinary action of that regulatory commission. The state record shows that the first step in terminating her license came in September 1986 when the state had to make a payment from the Real Estate Recovery Fund.
The Hawaii Association of Realtors has no record of Chu as a member. Hawaii Real Estate Commission chairwoman Barbara Dew was one of several local brokers who said they remember Chu but do not know her whereabouts.
A 1983 news story indicated that Ester Chu Realty did millions of dollars of business with Hong Kong investors.
Lo's attorney, Penny Cooper, said she had heard the name Chu but refused to comment further.