Federal investigators in Las Vegas continue to work out plea deals with Homeowner Association crooks who scammed hundred of homeowners in Las Vegas neighborhoods. In many cases homeowners just lost their homes. They were thrown out on the curb like so much garbage.
There’ve now been a total of three suspected suicides among the dozens of suspects who ran these scams. And one figure has been assaulted in what looks like a case of Las Vegas street justice. There are several big players yet to take the guilty plea, lawyers, judges, you know, people you come to suspect should believe in truth, justice and the American Way.
Federal Justice department investigators are getting in so much practice they could set up the same investigation in virtually any big city in the country. And once again, they’ll end up with crooked lawyers, judges, police officers and management companies. It’s so easy to steal from homeowners who 1. aren’t allowed to audit the books, 2. wouldn’t have an idea how to perform a forensic audit, and 3. have no access to an independent jury system.
Homeowner Associations are fundamentally corrupt. They were constructed in ways that would always make them corrupt. And despite the impotent excuses their defenders use to protect them, those defenders would probably make some excellent first targets as new investigations start popping up.
Mr. Lucas:
After reading several inputs I am amazed and relieved this issue is going to become under the radar of the general public.
I served on a board at a condo association in chicago for 4 years. When I arrived, everything in and around the building was ‘sold out’ to corruption. Myself and one other board member with a conscious took over the reigns and follow ‘Roberts Rules of Order’ to a “t”, and eventually we got rid of the evil that had captivated the structure of the operations of the building. It took 3 years to bring the corruption to light and replace all the evil contractors (elevator fraud, property management fraud, and downright theft). After we stopped the bleeding, the property (110 unit condo complex in Lincoln Park, Chicago) hemmoraged money. We went forth and fixed ‘humpty dumpty’, and the CUT ASSESSMENTS BY 10% as well as built up reserves from zero to over 6 figures. I always thought the drama involved in board management such as this would one day end up in a Hollywood movie. I still think it should….I started writing a script, but alas that is not one of my strengths and I don’t want to hire a ghost writer. The circumstance of 4 or 5 board members, all of whom just need to be an owner to serve with no experience or knowledge of building structures or contracts, are set in motion as a group to come together and balance a budget as well as vote on difficult and complex issues most of them know nothing about, and they have to rely on the management agent who knows all to well how to steer these situations into mayhem in order to push through bogus and corrupt contracts while lining their own pockets. Talk about the setting for character development…..
All the best, I will be paying attention.
Best Regards,
Arnie Goldstein
Chicago, Illinois USA
Hi Arnie,
You might be interested that a Texas film maker is doing a documentary called HOAx. The trailer makes it look like this could be an incredibly strong film. I’m not sure when it’ll be out, but it may be exactly what you might have produced had you decided to go foreward.
Ward
Arnie, sorry for my late reply. It took some real heroism to do what you did. God bless you for your courage.