Yep, I know that’s an insect, an annoying little insect. Wikipedia says katydids disguise themselves brilliantly as dead rotting leaves complete with holes in them.
I do strain for metaphors once in a while, but an HOA manager in Katy, Texas, disguised himself as a worthless piece of dead, rotting debris when he decided to steal a million dollars from his neighbors. 34 year old Taggert Mayfield pleaded guilty to money laundering, scoffing at his fiduciary dutues, and bald-faced theft from homeowners who profoundly trusted him.
Many of those homeowners were elderly and had saved all their lives to buy their retirement homes. Mayfield, who owned Arrow Management Company did lots of business in Fort Bend andHarris Counties. An Assistant D.A. says Mayfield was really “living the dream,” as a parasite sucking the life blood out of his neighbors’ financial dreams. He devestated a number of helpless homeowners, who will never again see the American HOA movement the way they once did.
Don’t think for a second, though, that Mayfield is alone. And don’t think that Las Vegas homeowners are alone as they struggle to recuperate from a hundred million dollar swindle the feds are still investigating in Nevada. No, folks, this kind of raw theft is going on in cities across the country. When an HOA demands total trust but refuses to install any safety checks, the HOA board officers are absolutely as guilty as the embezzlers. When lawyers are hired to suppress any protests by suffering homeowners, there’s something evil going on beneath the surface.
35 years in the slammer! That’s what a judge handed out to Taggert Mayfield, a property manager who stole about two million dollars from a number of HOAs he managed. Rarely, kind readers, rarely will you ever see this kind of a sentence given to someone who steals from his neighbors. More often, it’s a wrist slap and a restitution order that never gets paid.
But 35 years! Homeowners in Houston ought to be out in the streets celebrating!
The term “Homeowner Association” is almost synonymous with embezzlement. If you spent a month of Sundays on Google you could never track down all the stories of HOA embezzlement. The American HOA system rewards them, its lawyers cavort in the shower of dollars, the property managers take vacations to places most of us will never see. While homeowners pay higher and higher dues, while front entrances decay, and neighborhood swimming pools turn a bilious green, the word “embezzlement” is sort of like an employee benefit. “Help wanted. Property Management Company needs another manager. Free soda, medical marijuana, and all you can skim from the homeowners. People with ethics need not apply.”
35 years! These neighbors, of course, are going to have to pass millions of dollars worth of special assessments which could cost a lot of people their homes. The elderly and the disabled will suffer enormously. It’ll be tough for them to celebrate this judgment. Still, it might be a slight warning to other HOA embezzlers across the country.
