los angeles — The CEO of a Los Angeles homeless services charity is facing federal and state fraud charges after prosecutors say he lived a lavish lifestyle that included lavish vacations and designer clothes paid for with $23 million in public money aimed at keeping people off the streets.
Alexander Soffer, 42, was arrested Friday at his $7 million home, which investigators believe he provided using money that was supposed to support his nonprofit, Aundant Blessings, the first assistant U.S. Attorney said. Bill Al-Asili.
The charitable group is contracted with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, a county agency, to use taxpayer money to find shelter and provide three meals a day to more than 600 homeless residents.
Instead, prosecutors said, Sofer bought a $125,000 Range Rover, a $2,450 Hermès jacket, a vacation home in Greece and a trip to Hawaii, where he stayed at the Four Seasons hotel made famous as the setting for the HBO TV show “The White Lotus.”
“He was living a luxurious life while people who were suffering, who were homeless, were living on the streets with no shelter and no food,” Al-Asili said during a press conference Friday with Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman.
Al-Asili said that if convicted of the charges against him, Sofer could face a prison sentence of up to 20 years. An email was sent Monday seeking comment from Soffer’s attorney, Hilary Potashner.
According to the indictment, Sofer falsified invoices to claim he was providing fresh meals and renting rooms when the homeless were instead fed canned beans and large packages of microwavable ramen noodles.
Investigators found that Sofer falsified records to cover up the fact that he paid himself money to “rent” properties to homeless people that he already owned, the indictment said.
“Mr. Sofer called his company ‘Abundant Blessings,’ but the only abundant blessings were the blessings he gave himself,” Hochman said.
During the news conference, prosecutors cited concerns that the billions spent to combat homelessness have not succeeded in getting enough people off the streets. Los Angeles County’s homeless population fell 4% last year, according to the annual count released last July. It is estimated that about 72,000 people are living in shelters or sidewalk camps across the province.
Los Angeles County officials He moved last March To control hundreds of millions of dollars in spending, citing two scathing audits that found the Homeless Services Authority spent recklessly and without transparency.
Between 2018 and 2025, Sofer received more than $23 million in homeless housing funding. More than $5 million of that amount came directly from the county Homeless Services Authority and more than $17 million came through a Los Angeles-based nonprofit called Special Service for Groups Inc., the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. None of the money came directly from the state.
Soofer has been charged federally with wire fraud, and the state charges include 11 felony counts of conflict of interest, two felony counts of providing false evidence and five felony counts of forgery.
Sofer appeared in court on Friday but did not enter a plea. He was released on $1.5 million bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on February 26. An arraignment date has not yet been set for him on the state charges.
The arrests have become fuel for an ongoing war of words between President Donald Trump’s administration and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. After one conservative commentator blamed Newsom for the scam, the Democratic governor’s press office responded.
“This case was uncovered by local investigators working with law enforcement — exactly the kind of accountability and oversight the state sought to achieve,” Newsom’s office said.
This prompted a response from Al-Asaily, who once again blamed Newsom.
“You and the California Legislature facilitated this fraud by distributing billions of tax dollars to these nonprofits without any state audit or oversight,” Al-Asili said Friday on social media.