City of LA Faces False Claims Investigation for Inaccessible Housing

See this article from the LA Times, which begins:

The U.S. attorney has launched a fraud investigation to determine whether Los Angeles city officials ignored federal laws designed to protect the disabled when building or fixing up housing. 

City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and the Community Redevelopment Agency received letters last week from the U.S. attorney's civil fraud unit instructing them to preserve records for housing developments that have received federal funds through the city since 1988 — a time frame that covers scores of projects. 

The investigation spans January 2001 to the present, the letters said. If violations are uncovered, city agencies that used federal housing funds could face financial penalties, lose out on future grants or possibly become the subject of a criminal investigation, said Bill Carter, Trutanich's senior deputy.

An interesting use of the False Claims Act, which has all sorts of unexplored uses in the disability context.