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 agree with Randjet above. This is why God made rifles.
If she torched the CWS and the mortgage company no jury in the county would convict her.
Incredible how it isn’t a crime if a bank is behind it. I fear to leave my house empty of all people just on the off chance something like this could happen to us. We live in a county with dozens of similar sounding addresses…
Pat,
I believe that happened in Florida in 2011. I remember when it was on the evening news.
http://www.digtriad.com/news/article/178031/176/Bank-of-America-Gets-Pad-Locked-After-Homeowner-Forecloses-On-It
Yup, your right. Hey, I was only 3,000 off.
It seems like there was a case in CA where the same thong happened to a fairly affluent couple. Their attorney foreclosed on the local branch of BA. Started cleaning that puppy out. Law enforcement watched as file cabinets were loaded on a truck. But I do realize there is a difference between CA and WV.
chimene,
I think a lot of people feel that way. I have been pricing burglar alarms and video with audio capability. Newer cameras have night and low light vision, and if wireless can be monitored remotely. BTW, the video recorder should be in a hard to find location, such as the attic or a cutout in a closet ceiling.
An independent power supply is a good idea, so if power is cut, it does not disable the security system. I want to see the bankster’s burglars try to work with an alarm screaming at 110+ decibels and no way to shut it off.
Boy, I’m getting scared to leave my house to go to the grocery store for a couple of hours! Our house has been paid off for over 10 years, and we went through our CU. Although they did sell our mortgage to CUNA … no, hubs says that was “a long time ago, before CUNA went crazy”. I guess this is when we all need to get to know our neighbors, so we can protect each others’ property from things like this. I don’t think I’ve ever heard, in one of these reports, that NEIGHBORS CALLED THE COPS BECAUSE THEY KNEW THE HOUSE BEING “RAIDED” WAS PAID FOR, AND knew where the owners were and when they’d be back! Definitely going to be notifying SEVERAL nearby neighbors any time we go out of town after this!
chimene,, I hope you live in Texas since your neighbors can open fire on such crooks as did this latest outrage. Make sure your neighbors are armed, and know how to shoot straight. There is nothing like a few dead bad guys to stimulate reforms and get the attention of crooks and other officials.
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.
One problem here is that there are multiple potential defendants, not just the bank and the foreclosure crew. Between the “loan” which was foreclosed and the crew, there is at least one “‘servicing agent.” Probably more. And a law firm or two. And a court clerk or two. Any of these people could have made a typographical error.
Or, if things are really funky, it is possible that the underlying physical copies of the Note and the Mortgage (whether for this house, or a typo-ed house) were never properly transferred to persons who may have bought and sold them either currently or 25 years ago, assuming the mortgage was really for this house.
This is a really big problem which affects homeowners and RICH RENTIERS alike, because New York trust law, and various state laws require actual transfer of the paper work and related NOTE. Which many have been rumored to have been shipped to India reprocessing into bird cage liners to cover up various crimes. Which means homeowners may have been paying the wrong parties all along, and this woman may have only thought she paid off her loan.
And the RICH RENTIERS who get into things called REMICs, have a huge IRS tax problem for failure to meet the requirements for the tax benefit. Not to mention that some states require a Mortgagee to file a Release of Mortgage with the clerks of court when a loan is paid off, and sometimes attach criminal penalties for willful failure to do so.
Add to all of this the fact that many Title Insurance companies stopped doing actual title searches and just issued policies as cheaply as possible to maximize their profits, and it could be a long time pinning down who screwed up for this poor lady.
If I was the Sheriff, I would encourage the Crew to cough up the paperwork by jailing them and their bosses, as accessories after the fact, and try to get as high as possible bail to keep them in the hoosegow. Then, the journey to track this down could begin. And do the same with each person higher up the trail.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
RWL 1, September 1, 2013 at 1:04 pm
The hosing market …
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That says a lot … 😉
I meant to say consumers are spending more and saving less (moreover, consumers are depleting their 401(k)s just to maintain a certain standard of living or trying to ‘keep up with the Jones’).
The hosing market (and eventually our economy, again) is about to go off the cliff: ARMs are increasing, Jumbo mortgages are on the rise, and the federal reserve continues to spend $85 billion a month (they’ve been doing this since October 2008) in the form of quantitative easing to ensure interest rates stay at all time lows.
Not to mention that the banks haven’t released all of their pre-foreclosured properties, potential short-sells, and property tax sales (via local and state governments) onto the market.
Student loans have reached the $ trillion mark, credit card usage have reached pre-2008 levels, and consumers are spending more than they are saving and/or than they have.
I am wondering if our ‘rescue invasion’ of Syria has something to do with saving our economy? Over 2.5 billion barrels in oil reserves located beneath the Syrian ‘grounds’?
Anonymously Yours 1, September 1, 2013 at 11:14 am
It’s not burglary…. It’s not larceny…. Trespass is the best that they have…. But how can you have transferred intent when the hose they should have gone to was the target if the repo…. Yes there is loss… Make the victim whole….dig deep repo, forclosure company….and of course respondant superior…. For the bank… These types of cases are unfortunate…. But whee is the intent….
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“Criminal intent may have to be proved to convict under some statutes, but in some states trespass is a criminal offense regardless of the defendant’s intent.” (Dictionary).
Intent isn’t mentioned in the WV statute or case law as to the intent of the trespasser is it?
I don’t understand … want the name of the bank then look at who holds the mortgage for the property that was supposed to have been foreclosed. The repo company acted as their agents and according to the article in the DailyMail, the bank gave them a wrong address.
As to trespassing .. each worker trespassed and did so numerous times as the entered, left, reentered, left, reentered … once again as agents of the bank who owned the mortgage on the house that was supposed to be foreclosed.
Plants, the Prosecutor and a Republican, ran unopposed in the primary and general elections in 2012 and won a second term. Someone suggested that this prosecutor was counting his campaign contributions which is all fine and dandy because he’s going to need it after this debacle. Ol’ “Suitcase Plants” will definitely not be unopposed next time around.
“Isn’t it interesting that we have to go to the UK to find this kind of photo coverage of a very visual story?” (OS) Excellent observation
Mary Hackett Graham 1, September 1, 2013 at 10:59 am
Dredd, I think that Plants’ position is that there was lack of intent to commit a crime.
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The critical facts are any forced entry during the daytime, and then the taking or destruction of property once inside (If they did not force their way in then daytime burglary will not lie).
But if the owner gave no permission to enter, whether breaking or not, then entering is trespass:
(State v Slater, supra).
They knowingly entered the structure. They entered without the owner’s permission.
Once that trespass took place, the taking and/or destroying of property once inside, adds to the crime:
(WV code §61-3-30, supra) The two factual scenarios, then, are 1) if a breaking in took place in the daytime, and the intent of the breaking was to take property once inside, then “daytime burglary” has taken place; 2) if they had no permission from the owner to enter, then a trespass took place.
WV seems to have a unique law on daytime burglary.
Check the repo guys’ homes to see how many of those “junk” items are now sitting in their home.
It’s not burglary…. It’s not larceny…. Trespass is the best that they have…. But how can you have transferred intent when the hose they should have gone to was the target if the repo…. Yes there is loss… Make the victim whole….dig deep repo, forclosure company….and of course respondant superior…. For the bank… These types of cases are unfortunate…. But whee is the intent….
To pick up on what Nick said just above.
With modern digital cameras and massive memory storage capacity in modern computers and thumb drives, it is easy to take lots of high quality pictures of everything you own. If it has a serial number on it, keep a record. If it is valuable, get it appraised. Keep your records in a separate location. Remember what happened to Nikki Bailey. If they took everything to the landfill, as they claim, any computer files in the house would have disappeared too.
Remember, you are not filling out a tax return and listing thrift store or yard sale prices. Think in terms of replacement cost if your house is cleaned out. Think it can’t happen to you? Think again.
Al, traffic tickets don’t require mens rea. This, under the secpmd WV statute eited above, specifically does. The first statute cited, however, does not appear to have the same intent requirement, although I neither practice criminal law nor in WV, so I bow to those who have expertise in either.
He kinda missed the part where they did not return the belongings.