Eliot Kleinberg, Palm Beach Post
A judge today ruled prosecutors can’t prove eight men committed a crime when they stripped a million-dollar Loxahatchee Groves home under foreclosure.
The ruling could well lead prosecutors to drop charges against the eight, unless new evidence comes to light.
The decision focuses a spotlight on a growing problem: it’s taking a year on average for lenders to seize foreclosed homes through a formal sale, giving angry or desperate owners plenty of time to cart away goods and fixtures.
Or have someone do it for them.
“There is a problem with the system that’s going to plague our system for a long time,” Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Ted S. Booras said.
A Palm Beach County Sheriff’s report says a person had met a deputy Wednesday night at the home at 14094 43rd Road North. It’s valued at $1.1 million.
After the man showed the deputy a foreclosure document, the deputy found the eight men, seven of them from Broward County, removing major appliances, cabinets, and even toilets and tiles and copper wire.
Andrew H. Carr, 47, of Davie, told the deputy the men were in the house with the permission of a man named Gary Coulton, who was in Jamaica.
