A lawyer?!? Dang! The first lawyer in the Las Vegas HOA scandal to admit he’s a crook! Huge news!
The Las Vegas HOA corruption case marches steadily onwards. Today (Monday, 10/24/11) an eighth defendant pleaded guilty. He’s the first lawyer to take the fall for official corruption, and falsifying HOA election results. Sadly, he will get a reduced term for testifying against all the other criminals who took part in this effort to scam the residents of Las Vegas and their insurance companies. But at least his testimony will help bring down other lawyers, judges, police officers, and public officials whose names are yet to come out.
In case you don’t know, folks, this is one of the largest official corruption cases in FBI history. Funny, how it sits squarely on the American Homeowners Association establishment. The model for this federal investigation could be imposed on any major metropolitan area in America and the Feds would discover this same kind of corruption.
The HOA movement is fundamentally and foundationally flawed. Its very structure is problematic because there are no checks on power. The average HOA has no ethics police and no way to discipline official wrongdoing. When an HOA board “goes rogue” it can cause a tremendous amount of financial and emotional damage to the neighborhood before it’s reigned in.
If you’re a resident of Las Vegas who has lost 80 percent of your property value, believe me, it went into the pockets of the criminals now under indictment or facing indictment in the next few months. They got your money, they got your home equity. In my upcoming book, “Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association”, I’ll tell you where your money went and how easily it slid from your pocket into theirs.
Money doesn’t just vanish from the American housing system. It’s not a magic trick. Your home equity has to go someplace, that’s just basic economics. The stinky secret is that your home equity vanished into the pockets of a certain elite ruling class. In Las Vegas, at least, some brave federal officers are uncovering the secrets and fighting back.
http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/oct/24/lawyer-takes-plea-in-vegas-area-hoa-fraud-probe/
I cannot find this story on CNN nor Fox News nor MSNBC.
But if you search Google for nevada hoa site:cnn.com and read the results closely, you’ll find something interesting: a lot of real estate listings at realestate.money.cnn.com advertising “No HOA”.
Local news outlets in states like Texas, Nevada, and Florida have done some great reporting about the issue.
But unless I’m missing something, the national media have been ignoring an issue that directly affects 60 million Americans — one fifth of the U.S. population — and an industry that collections $30 billion (with a “b”) to $50 billion a year, and controls trillions of dollars in homeowners’ equity.