After a wonderful 4 day vacation last weekend, I returned home to find a lot happening on the legal front. While I was having fun, the Sheriff had dropped by the house to leave a subpeona for me to testify in a criminal case on Tuesday. This case involved a convicted felon that I had arrested for criminal tresspass at one of our apartment buildings. This felon has literally been arrested over 110 times and is currently awaiting a felony trial for carrying a concealed weapon. He is a drug addict who is very unpredictable and dangerous. More on this case later.
As I headed into town on Monday morning to begin collecting rents, I received a call from one of the city council members who asked me to attend the next nuisance abatement board meeting. As one of the largest rental property owners in the city, I have frequent contact with the city officials and they call me when there is a problem. The police captain and the nuisance board wants to talk to me about the recent activity at the Pink Elephant (my relatively new pink apartment building). This meeting will be held next Tuesday (the 10th).
Prior to my taking over the building, there were often multiple police calls to the building each day with constant fights, drug problems, and other criminal activity. In the month prior to my takeover, there was a pile of police reports over an inch thick. I have worked very hard to get rid of the riff-raff and have cut the number of incidents down to almost zero. To be honest, I was quite surprised to receive this call because I had talked to this same city councilwoman about 2 weeks ago, and she expressed her satisfaction and appreciation that I had cleaned up the building (gotten rid of the druggies and other scumbags).
So that I will be prepared for this meeting, I went to the police station and got copies of all the police reports for the past 2 months. I was pleased to find that in the last 2 months, there were only 6 police reports and 5 of those incidents didn't include my tenants. In fact, 3 of those reports involved the convicted felon that I mentioned above when he was trespassing on the property. In fact, after looking at the police reports, I can't imagine why the nuisance abatement board or police captain would like to talk to me.
Tuesday morning, I arrived at court to testify against the felon. After sitting in the courtroom a few minutes, the prosecutor asked me to go out in the hall with her. She thanked me for coming to testify, but said the felon was being released after being jailed for only 15 days. She said that even with a trial, he could only be held for 30 days and that the prosecutor had decided to release him for time served. I about had a stroke right there on the spot. If I didn't have such a hard head, my head surely would have exploded. I asked the prosecutor if she knew that this criminal had been arrested over 100 times. She did. I asked her if she knew that he was awaiting trial on felony charges of carrying a concealed weapon. She did. I asked her if she would accept responsibility for this criminal killing someone. She didn't reply, but simply said he was being released. I was furious!
Immediately upon leaving the courtroom, I called the city councilwoman to explain to her that this criminal had been let go. The city wants me to prevent incidents at my building, apparently including the 3 incidents in the past 2 months involving this felon (who isn't even one of my tenants), but when I have a dangerous criminal arrested and go to testify against him in court, the city prosecutor releases him. UNBELIEVABLE! The city councilwoman said that she will contact the prosecutor and demand answers. She is just as angry about this situation as I am.
I am writing a letter to the editor about this situation and I fully intend to press this issue until the prosecutor gets her act together.
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2 comments:
I share your frustration. Do you want to know what the going rate is for selling crack cocaine in plain view of children in downtown Los Angeles. 90 days! Since 50% is the standard that LA County prisoners do, that leaves a 45 day sentence. It takes at least 10 days to plea guilty, and the judge always credits time served before the plea. That leaves 35 days for selling crack. That's not just a fluke that one suspect was sentenced to. That is the everyday standard sentence for selling crack downtown. The dealers literally consider it into their cost of doing business.
That's some war on drugs.
Stephen - 45 days for selling crack cocaine - RIDICULOUS! However, at least your post makes me feel a little better. I guess the government incompetence is throughout the country, not just here in Ohio.
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