Sometimes The Truth Hurts
This truth applies to all of us!
Tag Archives: HOA Embezzlement
Elder Abuse and Financial Kidnapping
The link below is horrifying, but really should be read by everyone concerned about elder abuse. It involves state agencies that declare an elderly person ‘incapacitated’ and appoint a guardian who takes over that person’s care and gives the guardian unlimited access to the older person’s bank accounts.
While I was an investigative reporter for the NBC affiliate in Denver I reported on several such cases. Then, attending my 50th class reunion last month, I spoke to a longtime neighbor (and a good-lookin’ gal, too!) about a different kind of theft. Seems that a sibling was executor of her parents’ rather substantial estate and that sibling stripped out all the assets. My friend didn’t get a dime of what her parents left her.
State governments and the courts look the other way when these financial crimes are committed. They just don’t seem to care. When an old person is involved it’s just easier not to have to think about the abuse.
With all that in mind, please, please don’t neglect reading this linked web post. And apply it to your own situation and where you might find yourself some day.
(link to article on ‘theft by guardian’)
Another One Of Those ‘Isolated Incidents’
HOA boosters like the Community Associations Institute would have us all believe that embezzling by HOA board members is very isolated. Linked below is one more of the hundreds and even thousands of cases of out-of-control board members stealing from their neighbors.
(how isolated is HOA embezzling?)
Loretta Lock Finally Admits She’s A Thief
guest blog by Nila Ridings
Charleston Harbor HOA in Kansas City North, Missouri has been the latest victim of over a $100,000 embezzlement!
On August 19, 1938 a thief by the name of Loretta Lock was born. She sells real estate and advertises how honest she is! And her performance in the courtroom would have you thinking she’s a little old church lady who laid down her knitting needles and forgot her hearing aids in a rush to stand before the judge and plead guilty to stealing from two hundred of her neighbors! Annually, they each pay dues of $400. So her stint as the board treasurer and neighborhood thief required some very careful transacting.
You see, Loretta loves to gamble! Not with her money, but with her neighbors’ money. At times she used the HOA ATM card at the casino. Other times she just wrote herself checks.
Here’s a little twist to the story. Her husband is an attorney. So sometimes she wrote him checks, too, for his fabulous legal advice! Don’t you just love this story?
How did she get caught? Well, you’ll read about that in the attached article. But those of us who’ve been around this HOA embezzlement game table for a while know she could have pulled this off without ever being busted. Let’s just say she’s a very dumb criminal.
The Charleston Harbor board president, Chaz Wood is very smart. He wasted no time getting the police involved when the bank mentioned a $50,000 deposit that was made the day before he arrived with another board member to become signors on the HOA account. Red-headed Loretta had been stalling about turning over the financial records. Imagine that!
The board made a fatal error. Claiming they wanted to “save money,” they decided to forego the annual audits that are required by the CC&Rs. Never pass on doing the annual audits. That is precisely why my HOA, to this day has ten million dollars unaccounted for! No audits is a “Welcome To Steal Here” sign!
This case was being kept very quiet until an anonymous tipster spilled a few beans. From there, reporter Judy Thomas was like a bird dog on a pheasant hunt! And everybody knows I despise liars and thieves! We were off and racing to the Clay County courthouse and it’s a long way from Overland Park! Many thanks to the person who took a stand and made the call that changed it all.
Loretta Lock has gotten her fair share of continuances on this case. But we are committed to going back on October 21, 2016 to see if the judge is going to throw the book at her or let her walk with some probation restitution. Either way, I feel justice was served today when Judy Thomas exposed this despicable fraud of a woman in The Kansas City Star. I adore the homeowner who walked up to Judy and said, “Keep it above the fold!”
Many thanks to Judy Thomas for continuing to help us educate homeowners on the risks of buying into an HOA!
(link to Loretta Lock story in Kansas City Star)
Organized Crime? You Betcha!
Organized crime is endemic in the HOA industry, absolutely woven throughout the faulty fabric of the whole structure of Homeowners Associations. Racism, bribery, blackmail, criminal harassment, theft, extortion, embezzlement, phony liens and foreclosures.
If you go back through five years worth of blog posts on NeighborsAtWar.com you’ll see hundreds, even thousands of posts and links to stories of criminal activity in Homeowners Associations in virtually every state in America. Board members, treasurers, management companies, HOA lawyers, even the federal racketeering convictions of 43 HOA officials in Nevada. It’s a vast criminal empire that only recently is beginning to attract attention from the nation’s news media. So this next paragraph and the associated link shouldn’t surprise you much.
Sperlonga LLC, a data collection firm, has now made a deal with Equifax to begin adding HOA dues and payment history to the credit records of homeowners. Your late HOA payments, whether real or phony, will now have the same weight on your credit report as bank loans and auto payments. Welcome to the future, Bunky!
(link to press release by Sperlonga Data)
