Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger
It has happened again. This time in Logan, West Virginia. Schoolteacher Nikki Bailey came home from visiting a sick friend in the hospital, only to find a work crew from CTM Industries removing the last few pieces of her belongings from her house. The workers told Ms. Bailey they had been sent by a bank to clean out her house for foreclosure.
There is one minor detail. Her house was paid off in full twenty-five years ago. She showed reporters around the house, and everything was gone to the bare walls. Her pictures, diplomas, awards, and all her belongings.
There is one additional important detail. Ms. Bailey lives on Godby Street in Logan, WV. The house in foreclosure is in Godby Heights. That is in Chapmanville, ten miles away.
Mrs. Bailey told a reporter from news station WSAZ, “Everything was gone. Living room furniture, my Marshall diploma, my high school diploma, my pictures, my history. I was teacher of the year. All of that stuff is gone. It’s all gone.”
Adding insult to injury, the workers from CTM Industries told her they had inspected her things and considered them junk; therefore, they took everything to the dump. They had a couple of items remaining on their truck that had not yet been taken to the landfill. The repo company employees returned those things to her house on her insistence. Photographs of her house show it has been stripped of everything but the carpet…and the few items she was able to prevent them from hauling off
Ms. Bailey has retained an attorney, but the identity of the bank in question remains unidentified. The repossession company is not talking about who their client is. When reporters contacted CTM Industries to get a statement, the person answering the phone hung up.
Kanawha County Prosecutor Mark Plants indicated he was not going to pursue criminal charges. Prosecutor Plants opined, “It’s a lot like taking someone’s luggage at the airport. If I take a black bag, a black piece of luggage, get home and realize this is not my bag, that’s not a crime. That’s an accident,” He went on to say that no doubt somebody would have to make restitution, but no crime was committed.
Sorry Mr. Plants, taking someone’s life history from them and destroying it deliberately is not exactly like picking up the wrong suitcase at the airport. How do you make a victim whole when her diploma from Marshall University, her teacher of the year awards, her pictures and her memories are taken from her, pronounced as junk and hauled off to the landfill? A suitcase indeed, Mr. Mark Plants.
If there really is nothing they can be charged with, you could have talked all day Mr. Plants, and not say what you said to the reporter.
Television station WSAZ has the story with a video of their broadcast of the story.
This story is getting repetitious. A similar incident happened In Ohio. In that case, the bank is demanding sales receipts for all the property wrongly taken and sold at auction before they will consider making restitution. Several more incidents have been reported on this blog, here, here and here. That is just a sampling.
Please discuss. What do you think?
I would also assume, from the homeowner’s perspective, that the house was full of irreplacable one-of-a-kind artifacts, many millions of dollars worth.
You can bet Prosecutor Mark Plants is getting a cut of the profits. Good ol’ boy network there.
Gene,
that pungent aroma you smell is a rotting rat of a corporate owned prosecutor.
“My guess is the bank has ties to the Prosecutor’s office, or further-up the food chain.”
Yep. The lack of charges here certainly smells like the fix is in.
New York State Court of Appeals Chief Judge Sol Wachtler: “a grand jury would ‘indict a ham sandwich,’ if that’s what you wanted.”
Of note, Wachtler would experience the system, sans robes at a later date.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Wachtler
I find it hard to believe there is no means of making a case for prosecution. My guess is the bank has ties to the Prosecutor’s office, or further-up the food chain.
O.S.: Just an observation to follow up Squeeky and others. I have worked with all kinds of prosecutors at both state and Federal level for four decades. Some were good, some were bad, but most were pretty average. I have yet to come across a prosecutor who could not figure out something to charge a suspect with.
as for the DA. he’s a mason owned by the banks of course he isnt going to charge them. this type of stuff will continue unless the people wake up and begin removing their money from the banks. and start saving their money in municipal credit unions
not sure how it works in the rest of the world.. but here in nyc repo agencies are not allowed to throw anyones possessions away. whether they considered it junk or not. here if the ladies home was in foreclosure the repo or marshall agency IS REQUIRED to put the owners possessions in storage with them given x amount of time to retrieve the possessions. the fact that the repo agents so nastily told this lady THEY CONSIDERED IT ALL JUNK. would prompt me to sue not only the company but alsi go after every agent involved. lets see how much the courts think their possession is worth. i would also go to every social media site i could find and post my story with the name of the company and agents. lets see how much the owners of said company feels their lost of business is worth. and if they are criminal charges to what i propose. i would take the stand that they already took my life. there is nothing else to lose.
Maybe someone might show up at several houses with a demolition order, a bulldozer, and mistaken impressions. Howdoyoulikethemapples?
Shouldn’t they have to prove it was a mistake? That’s a legal defense, sure, but how on earth can it be pre-emptive? They say a secret unnamed bank sent them to the wrong address – how do we know that actually happened without any sort of discovery?
Couldn’t I just pull up a truck to someone’s house and loot it, say a secret unnamed bank sent me to do it and whoopsie made a mistake, and walk away scot free?
Great, but sad story OS. The court will “convince” the repossession company to release the name of the lender involved. I think both the bank and the repossession company will have to dig deep to compensate for this horrible error made worse by arrogance.
OS, Seems to me that if a law enforcement agency has invested in a SWAT team, the agency is likely to use it on flies to justify the expense.
Thank you for the link and tips.
JoF,
I saw that story when I was pulling this one together. There are literally too many out there. Also, there are numerous stories of SWAT raids on homes where people inside were killed, only to discover too late the police raided the wrong house. I have been considering putting up a big sign on the front and back doors in addition to alarms just to be on the safe side.
As for formatting, it is identical to Daily Kos formatting for blockquote, italics and bold . WordPress will not allow images in comments, but you can post videos. All you have to do is copy the URL from the YouTube video and paste; it will format itself to proper size. If it is easier for you, open DKos in a tab, put your quote in a comment box on DKos, format it, then copy and past into the comment box here. Close the open comment box on DKos without posting.
Here is some information on formatting:
http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/html-allowed-in-comments-2/
OS, I think you’ll enjoy this —
“Katie Barnett, a 36 year old nurse from McArthur, Ohio, made the mistake of taking her family on a two week trip last month, never realizing when they left home that they would return to find the family residence ransacked, emptied and, for good measure, the locks to the doors changed.
“A burglary? Or maybe, as the local police theorized, the work of squatters who had taken advantage of the open domicile to have a two-week vacation of their own?
“It turns out, the home invasion was far more insidious than either the Barnett family or the local crime sleuths could imagine.
“You see, the Barnett family had fallen victim to one of the most dangerous, dreaded and ethically challenged genres of home invaders in the nation—bankerus moronicus piggius….”
~ America’s Dumbest Banks: Bank Repos Wrong House, Destroys Contents, Then Refuses To Pay Owner’s Losses – http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2013/07/27/americas-dumbest-banks-bank-repos-wrong-house-destroys-contents-then-refuses-to-pay-owners-losses/
(How do you do blockquotes?)
someone there needs to run against “house” Plants.