What is it about the American flag that so disgusts the boards of Homeowners Associations? Why is it that patriotism across this grand country is dying? Our parents and grandparents fought fascism abroad a half dozen times over the past century. But the unregulated HOA movement is continuing to increase its dictatorial grip on the tens of millions of people who have come under its control. Our kids are growing up in schools that no longer teach the Pledge of Allegiance or duty to God and Country. They’re learning by our example that patriotism is just not PC.
The latest example comes to us, from of all places, El Paso, Texas which is essentially a military town. An HOA developer is demanding that an elementary school take down a red white and blue flag display from an exterior wall.
What is it about the ‘control’ issues many HOA board members have? And why is it that brand new Ford F-150 pickups are so hated?
The board of the Kimry Moor Homeowners Association in Fayetteville, New York has decided that homeowners David and Arna Orlando are scofflaws because they park their pickup in the driveway instead of in the garage.
Never mind that people all over this HOA park their trucks in their driveways.
No, I strongly suspect the issue isn’t the truck. It’s that somebody on the board thinks the Orlando family are of the wrong race, the wrong income level or because their kid might have smart-mouthed a board member’s kid at school.
I hope the Orlando’s attorney looks at an almost identical case in Texas where the owner of the Ford F-150 got sued for his truck…and he actually won the case against his power-mongering HOA. It’s too bad that HOA homeowners have to pay special assessments to support this kind of insanity.
Well, the guilty plea was made. Federal Judge Mahan accepted it. No sentence yet. Leon Benzer might be surprised to hear himself described as a mobster, but that’s exactly what he is. He conspired with lawyers, police officials, judicial officials, and state politicians to steal millions of dollars from Nevada Homeowners Associations. That’s called racketeering. You don’t need to be Italian to be a mobster. You just have to have a massive deficit of character.
Traditionally, white collar criminals get about 18 months in prison no matter how many millions they’ve stolen. Benzer has bankrupted an unknown number of Las Vegas homeowners. The damage he inflicted will impact generations of American families. In the end, he made himself a multi-millionaire at the expense of ordinary citizens. He conspired with mobsters and drug cartels in Mexico to hide his fortune. When he walks out of prison he’ll retire to waterfront property in some exotic locale and laugh at the stupidity of all the people he swindled.
Benzer will laugh at the impotent American legal system which couldn’t come close to touching the real scope of his swindle. He’ll snigger at FBI agents who spent years trying to uncover his scam. He’ll laugh at prosecutors and a judge who couldn’t give him life in prison. And he’ll look back fondly at his time in prison bragging to cellmates about how much fun he had doing this swindle. I know all of this because I’ve spent four decades investigating and exposing white collar criminals. Despite federal prison sentences they love what they do.
White collar criminals are addicted to their lifestyles. To the victims it’s devastating. To the mobsters it’s all a game.
Rumors are that HOA mobster Leon Benzer is going to plead guilty in federal court Friday morning! Benzer headed up the massive scheme to take over and corrupt Homeowners Associations in and around Las Vegas. Benzer got phony board members ‘elected’ in dozens of HOAs. Millions of dollars in construction defect mitigation insurance was then diverted away from homeowners and into the pockets of lawyers, police officials, prominent politicians, businessmen. A federal judge has told homeowners they’ll never get back those stolen millions. And Benzer will be the 37th member of the gang to skate past federal organized crime and racketeering charges with just a pat on his corrupt and flabby back.
This case has been weird from the very beginning. Four of the most ‘inconvenient’ suspects committed suicide. It was one of the largest public corruption cases in the history of the FBI. So it’s really rather sad to see the feds knuckle in to knuckleheads. By accepting Benzer’s guilty plea the feds will be throwing away one of the most valuable corruption intimidation cases they’ve ever conducted.
Yay that the the ‘feebies’ got Sammy ‘the Bull’ and the Teflon Don thrown in jail for life. But Nevada and Las Vegas, which are famous as a retirement community for the world’s Mafioso, will never get to know the whole story about how corrupt the American Homeowners Association movement really is. And that means the movement will not only stay corrupt, it will get more corrupt. Steal a hundred million bucks and get 18 months in jail? A lot of folks would say, “Hey, I’d like that job!”
I don’t have to exaggerate this one since it’s coming out in next month’s federal HOA racketeering trial in Las Vegas. No, there are positive links between money laundering in American Homeowners Associations through Mexican drug cartels. As absolutely incredible and impossible it sounds, everything’s fair game when it makes its way into sworn federal court testimony.
Sound weird? Impossible? Just remember that when crime gets organized, organized crime becomes endemic.
And remember that the national news networks are totally avoiding any in-depth reporting on this story. Shame on the national media.
