Tag Archives: Federal investigators

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Dear Friends,

Please, please consider signing the petition to restore Constitutional law to our private neighborhoods, HOAs, CIDs, POAs. This is not a radical petition. It’s only a request that our federal government allow homeowners access to Constitutional rights that they inadvertantly signed away while signing their mortgage papers.

As stated before in the blog, George Staropoli’s petition is not radical, it’s only common sense. Protect your rights. Restore your rights. Please read George’s letter COPIED below.

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From George Staropoli:

To the national advocate leadership:

Thanks for your efforts, now and in the past. This petition is for all of us!

We need only 150 signatures in order to have the petition appear on the We the People website for all to see. The turnout is dismal. Once we get on the site we can then expect a large response from those truly concerned about the state of our Constitution.

I need your help to get to those 150 petitions. Please urge the people on your lists to get busy and sign the petition. Tell them in your own words why we must get the FEDS’ attention. This is not democrat/republican or conservative/liberal! This our American system of constitutional government created by the Founding Fathers without reference to any political party! This support from Washington is a legitimate function of our Federal government, especially since the long history of state legislative failures to uphold the Constitution demands federal intervention.

We only have 30 days to get to 25,000 petitions, otherwise we have lost a very important inroad to Washington and the national scene. And CAI will be laughing its ass off if we fail. It is extremely important that you, the national leadership, urge support for the petition.

Please pass this on to others.

Tiny Mice Gang Up On Big Rats in California

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Homeowners usually get the raw end of the deal when they try to fight the “Bigs” in the HOA industry. Some Homeowners in California are trying to turn that trend around. An HOA in Riverside County has sued three former property managers for “fraud, conspiracy to defraud, breach of contract, and breach of fiduciary duty.” They had employed the management companies for eight years.

Canyon Lake Association then sued its own law firm, Fiore, Racobs & Powers, accusing them of “fraud and malpractice.” They say a lengthy investigation found “no cash management, no separation of accounting duties, credit card abuse by employees, employee salary increases that were not approved by the board.”

The lawsuit further claims that three HOA managers “created and concealed a secret, systemic pattern of conversion and theft of (HOA) assets and funds…and made representations to the board that were not true and were a cover up designed..to delay discovery of the cover-up.”

One final thought comes to mind here. We haven’t heard much from the federal investigators in Las Vegas. We hope the widespread corruption they found in the Vegas HOA industry hasn’t depressed them to the point that they want to throw in the towel. Actually, we hope the opposite is true. We hope they take a look around the country and discover that the legal scams in Las Vegas are as identical and numerous as the legal scams in Riverside County, and Modesto, and Weld County, Colorado. and Dallas and Houston and Miami, and North Carolina.

If you don’t think it’s happening in your own community, you are either naive or dumber than a box of rocks. When we signed those CC&Rs, we stepped into an entirely new form of government with no checks and no balances. We essentially told law firms and property managers, “It’s OK to steal from us.” And then we whine when they steal from us. What gives?

Ward Lucas, author of Neighbors At War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Nevada State Senator Upset at Blogger Coverage Of “Suicides”

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Nebraska Senator Mike Schneider is asking the governor to call a special session of the legislature to pass new laws against Homeowner Association fraud. He says he’s been reading a blog on the Las Vegas scandal and he doesn’t like the kind of comments being made about suicides committed by suspects indicted in the HOA scandal. (Hmmm, I wonder which blog he’s talking about!)

He does note that out of the first ten suspects named in the massive federal investigation of Las Vegas HOA corruption, four committed suicide. One of the suicides was committed by lawyer David Amesbury. Investigators say he hanged himself from a rafter in his brother’s barn. This was after he was severely beaten and his knees crushed on a street inside a gated Nevada HOA. His suicide seems horribly suspicious. His family doesn’t believe it. This blogger doesn’t believe it. In fact, this blogger is predicting more “suicides” among the increasing number of indicted suspects, especially those who work out plea bargains with prosecutors.

The “suicide” of lawyer Nancy Quon is another weird one. Her whole story is weird. Anyone just reading a few facts about Quon’s story could easily appreciate a new Clancy novel about the case. It’s great fiction, just great fiction.
But Senator Schneider says this kind of publicity is bad for Las Vegas because people think “the Mob” is back in the city killing witnesses. He thinks a new law against HOA corruption would improve the city’s image. He decries the fact that rigged HOA elections are egregious and that they amount to a legalized shakedown of insurance companies.

Senator Schneider is right about one thing. There absolutely have to be some legislative changes to fight this kind of corruption. But he doesn’t take into consideration is that Las Vegas HOAs are not unique. The same kind of corruption is endemic in HOAs across America. The very structure of Homeowners Associations puts them in a position where corruption by board members, managers and attorneys is almost encouraged. There are no double-checks, there are no controls, there’s nothing to stop corruption in most of these gated neighborhoods.

It’s sad, but any new state law against Homeowner Association corruption is simply not going to work. There are already statutes against organized crime. That’s what’s allowing the U.S. Attorney to bring these HOA indictments in the first place. The only new law that would have any kind of impact is a federal law that gives homeowners back their access to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The Constitution created all sorts of double checks on government excesses. But people who buy HOA homes sign away their access to the Bill of Rights. Give those rights back, take away the power of HOA boards to arbitrarily fine, sue and foreclose on homes for minor violations and you might actually see some real change.
BTW, credit is due reporter Nathan Baca of KLAS-TV 8 News in Las Vegas for interviewing Senator Schneider and getting this story out to the public.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

More Rats Flee the Sinking Las Vegas HOA Ship

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The Las Vegas Review Journal reports that 14 more people have taken plea bargains in the FBI’s HOA corruption investigation. That brings the total to 24. This four year investigation has taken way too long, far longer than most. But after its bumpy start, federal agents really started homing in on the fraudsters who’ve cheated so many Las Vegas homeowners and stolen their home equity, costing them their life savings and their homes.

The real tragedy of winding this investigation up early is that hundreds of homeowners who lost their homes will sit and wonder, “what to do?” They’ve been cheated of their entire life savings. But they don’t know who to contact to try to get it back.

Four of the suspects have actually met justice of some sort, committing suicide before they could actually face the music in court. That continues to be a very weird part of this investigation, how four prominent public figures could suddenly “off” themselves. One of them, attorney David Amesbury, was beaten, both of his knees crushed before he “decided” to commit suicide in his brother’s barn. Another was Nancy Quon, who funneled hundreds of millions of dollars worth of construction defect litigation to just two Nevada legal firms. Nancy Quon also showed up dead…in her bathtub. Again….real suspicious.

At any rate, the Review-Journal reports on the 14 new indictments of people who arranged to seat phony boards in Las Vegas Homeowner Associations and then take part in a series of fraudulent actions against homeowners.

Again, most of the latest round of criminal charges seem minor. For participating in this 100 million dollar scam, most of these folks will get probation, or at most a few months in jail. Just think of that: for murdering the financial future of thousands of homeowners, they get just a few months in jail at the most.

The fourteen new indictments are interesting.They include at least one attorney. At least the federal suit possibly opens a way for abused homeowners to file their own lawsuits against the bad guys. For homeowners who’ve lost every dime they have, though, it’s cost prohibitive to file such a lawsuit. Lawyers on both sides realize that they’ll be the only ones to profit, if anyone. There’s an arrogance among criminal and defense lawyers who are already talking about how to lower or eliminate potential prison time for these slime bags.

But where are the Judges, the politicians, the major Las Vegas figures who the feds promised to indict? I just hope they’re not ending this investigation too soon.

Mr. Big still hasn’t been indicted. He’s pretty slick with lots of high powered legal help. We’ll see, we’ll see.

(NOTE TO THE FEDS: Absolutely every city in the country has a nearly identical scandal going on. We love what you’re doing in Las Vegas, but if you quit there, many homeowners will pray that you’ll rot in your graves.)

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

The Las Vegas HOA Corruption Investigation Gets More Complicated

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Federal investigators trying to squeeze the corruption out of Las Vegas Homeowners Associations are just dying (or at least their clients are). How can you run an investigation when your chief witnesses keep ending up drowning in bathtubs, hanging from barn rafters.

Suddenly, swindlers who agreed to rat out fellow conspirators are getting nervous. They’re telling their own attorneys to walk back previous confessions.

But a wilder thing happens when civil lawyers try to bully their way into the feds’ investigation. They start filing civil lawsuits against the chief witnesses in the federal investigation. Those witnesses realize for the first time they’ll be tied up in the courts for years. Offers from the feds to “protect” their witnesses start ringing hollow. And witnesses start acting like rats on the Titanic.

So much corruption. And any ability for the feds to prosecute Organized Crime in the HOA system, begins to fade. It just fades away.

All that work, and entire investigations can just turn to…dust.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

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