Dale S. Fischer

Dale Susan Fischer (born October 17, 1951) is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

Early life and education Fischer was born in Orange, New Jersey. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida in 1977, and her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School in 1980.

Private practice Fischer was in private practice in California for 17 years, from 1980 to 1997, during which she also volunteer briefly for the Los Angeles City Attorney's Office. She practiced as a business litigator at the law firms Heller Ehrman and Kindel & Anderson.

Judicial career State judicial service Fischer was a judge on the Los Angeles Municipal Court from 1997 to 2000, hearing criminal cases. She was then a judge on the Los Angeles County Superior Court, hearing criminal cases from 2000 to 2003.

In 2018, Judge Fischer issued a nationwide injunction and receivership over West H&A-a company who had frauduently hijacked more than 2,000 defaulted mortgages nationwide and coinvinced the distressed borrowers to begin paying their mortgage payments to West H&A instead of their real lender. Nationstar Mortage LLC, represented by Jered Ede and Jane Kutepova, sought and obtained the first-of-its kind injunction and receivership after discovering several of its borrowers had begun paying West H&A thinking they had cured their defaults. West H&A was operated by Patrick Soria, who Fischer found in civil and criminal contempt after Nationstar demonstrated Soria had violated Judge Fischer's order. Soria was then prosecuted by the DOJ. In 2021, Soria was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison for orchestrating the fraud scheme causing more than $7 million in losses. Fischer said the scheme was "the most brazen and heartless" she had presided over in her career.

In 2023 the criminal securities fraud case of Terren Peizer, the CEO and chairman of publicly traded healthcare company Ontrak, was assigned to Fischer. After Peizer was charged with insider trading by the SEC, which alleged that he sold $20 million of Ontrak stock while he was in possession of material nonpublic negative information related to the company’s largest customer, the U.S. Department of Justice announced criminal charges of securities fraud against Peizer, charging that thereby he had avoided $12 million in losses.