Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office charges Guerneville landlord with price gouging

Prosecutors have filed a price-gouging charge against a Guerneville landlord accused of raising rent on a tenant above the 10 percent allowed under a declared state of emergency.

The Sonoma County District Attorney’s Office said Denise Marie Reesink, 59, hiked in May monthly rent from $2,000 to $2,400 - a 20-percent spike - on a two-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bathroom Guerneville home.

The charge is part of an ongoing effort to protect consumers after October’s Northern California wildfires. Anti-gouging protections are in place until Dec. 4.

Under California law, price gouging is considered a misdemeanor offense, punishable by up to a year in jail and as much as $10,000 in fines. Each count also comes with the possibility of up to $5,000 in civil damages.

Reesink did not return messages Thursday. She’s scheduled to make an initial appearance for arraignment in Sonoma County Superior Court in two weeks.

The case is the seventh of its kind brought by the local District Attorney’s Office following the October firestorm that destroyed nearly 5,300 homes in the county. In addition, the Attorney General’s Office has filed price-gouging charges in two Marin County cases.

Shortly after the fires, the Sonoma County prosecutor’s office took the lead and formed a regional anti-gouging task force to monitor unlawful price increases. More than 300 complaints have since been reported to the office, and 11 investigations remain open, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Scott Jamar, who oversees the group.

“We created the task force for resource and information sharing with respect to the common goal of quelling price gouging in regards to the wildfires,” Jamar said. “Clearly the lion’s share of the offenses, at least that we’ve uncovered, has occurred in Sonoma County.”

The latest criminal filing follows another one in August against landlord Stacy Ervin Holland, 55, of Orange County, who is accused of raising rent by 35 percent on a Bennett Valley home two weeks after the fires. Holland, who pleaded not guilty through an attorney, is scheduled for a settlement conference later this month.

Three Sonoma County cases and one in Marin County have been resolved through diversion programs that let the defendants accept tenant reimbursements, renegotiated leases at legal limits and community service hours. The other four filings in Sonoma County remain active, as does the other case filed last month by the Attorney General in Marin County.