America the Messy Yard Police State

Messy yard cops can steal your home!!!

Messy yard cops can steal your home!!!

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Phoenix spends $13,000 to clean up plush property

Carol Sowers
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 6, 2008 12:00 AM

A high-profile suspect in a $56.8 million money-laundering scheme has run out of time to clean up the debris-strewn exterior of his home in a plush northeast Phoenix neighborhood.

Phoenix officials have hired a crew to clear off vegetation and garbage, fill up an excavation site, remove an unsound fence and board up his house.

Bruce D. Love, the suspect, was to have done the work on his home by May. advertisement

"He is long past the 35-day notice," said Christy Blake, a code-enforcement supervisor in Phoenix.

The slow place of the cleanup has angered residents of the exclusive multimillion-dollar neighborhood at the base of the Phoenix Mountains Preserve. The front yard is ringed with a chain-link fence, but the easily accessible back yard is lined with 2-foot-deep trenches.

The city is using a so-called abatement procedure to guarantee payment for the estimated $13,000 cleanup, Blake said.

The procedure allows the city to place an assessment, similar to a lien, against the property. If the property is sold, the city will be second in line to get its money, Blake said.

Unpaid taxes are to be paid first.

The $13,000 cleanup is a break for Love, a physician. When he was cited in April with multiple violations, city officials estimated the cost at $45,000.

Love and two partners have been indicted on multiple counts of money laundering, conspiracy and other charges over the use of their Western Union locations in Phoenix and Mesa to cater to human smugglers, also known as coyotes.

Police say the smugglers told families awaiting undocumented relatives to wire money for their passage to the Western Union operations.

Those high-volume transactions over the past four years increased their commissions, turning the scheme into a multimillion-dollar operation.

 
 

America the Messy Yard Police State