The Orange County Bankruptcy

This report constitutes a factual summary of the criminal investigation, which resulted from the Orange County Bankruptcy. It is not a comprehensive review of the investigation, and should not be construed to be such. On December 6, 1994, the County of Orange filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection. County officials believed this action was necessary because of market losses to the Orange County Investment Pool (OCIP) estimated at the time to exceed $2,500,000,000. Due to a favorable selling environment, the actual losses were later tabulated at about $1,500,000,000. The OCIP had been leveraged to $21 billion dollars. Subsequently, the Orange County (CA) District Attorney's Office opened an investigation to determine criminal culpability. The scope of the investigation was designed to examine whether or not a crime(s) occurred in connection with events that culminated with the bankruptcy filing. In order to understand the criminal misconduct discovered by this investigation, it is necessary to understand the nature of the OCIP, and to have an understanding of the way the investments were handled. It is also important to understand the relationships, which existed between Orange County and its political subdivisions, broker-dealers, the attorneys, which advised the County, and all the participants who had some impact on the financial collapse. This publication is a historical account of the largest municipal bankruptcy (at date of this publication) in the history of the United States of America.