Breaking And Entering: Acorn Activist Arrested - With Videos
FOX:
Arrest Made in Home Foreclosure Civil Disobedience Program
By Joshua Rhett Miller
Police in Baltimore today made what is believed to be the first arrest in a civil disobedience program aimed at supporting homeowners who refuse to vacate their foreclosed homes.
An activist with ACORN — the Association of Community Organization for Reform Now — faces criminal charges after breaking into a home in southeast Baltimore on Thursday to protest the foreclosure crisis sweeping the country.
“This is our house now,” ACORN member Louis Beverly reportedly said after cutting a lock with bolt cutters at the home.
Beverly will be charged with fourth-degree burglary, according to Anthony Guglielmi, a spokesman for the Baltimore Police. Attempts to reach his attorney, Justin Brown, were not immediately successful.
Donna Hanks, who owned the home since 2001, lost it in September when she couldn’t make her $1,995 mortgage payments. It was not immediately clear whether Hanks re-entered her home last week, but she was not expected to be arrested, Guglielmi said.
Other police departments contacted by FOXNews.com said arrests would be made if an individual is determined to be residing at a foreclosed home illegally.
“If they’re trespassing and it’s not their property, absolutely, there’d by an arrest,” a police source in Boston said. “If they were told to leave the property and they didn’t, they’d be charged with disorderly conduct.”
Pittsburgh Police Spokeswoman Diane Richard said charges would be filed against any individual found living in a foreclosed home, whether that individual had previously lived at the residence or not.
“If someone is court-ordered to vacate and they do not, it would be trespassing at that point,” Richard said. “What exactly would be charged depends on the intensity of the violation. It could go all the way up to burglary, which is a felony.”
The flood of foreclosures across the country has already led some law enforcement officials to alter how they handle evictions.
In Wayne County, Michigan, Sheriff Warren Evans suspended all foreclosure sales on Feb. 2 until a federal plan to combat foreclosures can be implemented, spokesman John Roach said. In Butler County, Ohio, Sheriff Richard Jones has reportedly ordered deputies not to evict residents who have no other housing options during the winter months. And in Cook County, Illinois, where a record 4,487 foreclosures occurred last year, Sheriff Thomas Dart appointed an attorney to review all eviction orders in October in order to protect individuals who continued to pay rent after their buildings were seized by banks.
Joe Cox, a community organizer for ACORN in Baltimore, said Monday’s arrest was not a surprise.
“We definitely expected some kind of a response,” Cox said. “We understand people have to do their jobs and we hope that they understand that we’re doing this to highlight the issue.”
Cox said he expects homesteading — refusing to vacate a foreclosed property — will become common as blame for the foreclosure crisis increasingly shifts from homeowners to financial corporations.
“This program is saying, ‘We are not going,’” Cox said last week. “People say we’re breaking the law, but we don’t see how putting a person back in an abandoned property is harming anyone.”
ACORN launched its “Home Savers” campaign in New York earlier this month and plans to expand the program to at least 22 other cities and three counties nationwide in the coming weeks. Participants like Beverly say they will refuse to move out of foreclosed homes or reclaim properties altogether until a comprehensive federal housing plan takes affect.
Cox said ACORN’s homesteading program has attracted homeowners at risk of losing their homes from all socioeconomic backgrounds, from low-income Baltimore city neighborhoods to the more affluent Washington-area suburbs.
“We very much like what President Obama is doing with his foreclosure plan, but there’s going to be a lot of people still left out,” Cox said. “What we’ve been calling for nationally is a foreclosure moratorium so people have time to get help from a HUD-certified agency and start negotiating with lenders to get the banks off [their] back.”
Attempts to reach Beverly on Monday were unsuccessful. In a Feb. 13 press release announcing the organization’s plan to fight foreclosures, Beverly called for “civil disobedience” as a last resort.
“We need foreclosures to stop right now,” Beverly said. “We need a moratorium to allow time to try to get loans modified so they can stay in their homes. The banks don’t really want your house — it becomes a liability for them. With restructuring of the loan, everyone wins.”
At least 500 volunteers have reportedly agreed to work as “home defenders” to employ non-violent tactics to block authorities from evicting homeowners. Other cities targeted by the campaign include Denver, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Dallas, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Orlando, Fla.
Founded in 1970, ACORN is a community-based, grassroots organization that primarily focuses on — among other social issues — health care, affordable housing and voter registration programs. Its large-scale voter registration drives most recently came under scrutiny during the 2008 presidential race, during which ACORN reportedly gathered more than 1.3 million voter registration forms in 21 states. Approximately 400,000 forms were reportedly rejected for duplications, incomplete forms and fraudulent applications.
President Obama, who was endorsed by ACORN, served as a local counsel for the organization in a 1995 voting rights lawsuit.
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hahaha. What’d I say? I told ya they’d arrest his ass for breaking and entering.
Drill
Don´t try to tell me different. I am CONVINCED that somewhere between November 4th and 5th, I slipped into a parallel fucking universe.
I have mixed emotions on this. Some in my family lost everything to banks in the great depression. If you put people in the streets what does that do for the neighborhood? Every case should be judged on its own merits, if people need to get a pass on their mortgage let them pay interest only for a while. Somehow empower the Banks to make temporary deals with home owners in distress.. Its easy to say fuck em they are just losers who made dumb mistakes but it is f..ing hard right now to make ends meet.
Should arrest the ‘homeowner’ as an accomplice.
Will the court costs and such be taken off acorns take in the non-stimulus bill? And will the gutless republicons make a huge scene over this? You know the dims would. Shit like this burns my ass. I know the answers are no and fuck no.
http://michellemalkin.com/
(note: The article shows the court docs)
Michelle Malkin
Lead Story
Document drop: The truth about ACORN’s foreclosure poster child
By Michelle Malkin • February 23, 2009 10:10 AM
On Feb. 18, I warned about the ACORN civil disobedience mob working in ideological tandem with Barack Obama to bully Washington into passing a massive new foreclosure prevention/mortgage entitlement scheme. On Feb. 20, I noted that ACORN garnered nationwide media attention for breaking and entering into a foreclosed home in Baltimore at 315 South Ellwood Ave. ACORN vows to use “any means necessary†to stop foreclosures. Baltimore police have taken fingerprints at the break-in site and the current owner, William Lane, says he will sue ACORN. The home was sold in June 2008 for $192,000. This morning, ACORN official Louis Beverly will face a burglary charge. Look for the Left to turn him into a martyr.
It is not your home, ACORN.
Here is what the MSM won’t be telling you about the so-called “victim†in that case, ACORN worker Donna Hanks — all based on public records and court documents.
According to real property data search information, Hanks bought the two-story home in the summer of 2001 for $87,000. At some point in the next five years, she re-financed the original home loan for $270,000.
Question: Where did all that money go?
The house initially went into foreclosure proceedings in the spring of 2006. In July 2006, Hanks filed for bankruptcy and agreed to a Chapter 13 plan which was served to the following creditors: Americas Servicing Co, Bank Of America, Chase, Covahey, Boozer, Devan & Dore, and Discover. She agreed to repay $10,500 in arrears, which resulted in a halt to the 2006 foreclosure.
In September 2006, the bankruptcy court ordered Hanks’ employer to deduct $340/month from her salary as a bartender to pay down the debt (total net monthly take home pay of $1,228):
Hanks’ Schedule I showed additional monthly income of $1,625 for a second and third claimed jobs, plus pro-rated tax refund income.
Hanks did not comply with the plan. In December 2007, the servicer issued a notice of default on nearly $7,000 past due.
In February 2008, Baltimore City Circuit Court records show a second foreclosure action was filed.
She had two years to pay what she owed. She failed to comply.
When she told local TV station WJZ that her evil bank raised her mortgage by $300 (â€The mortgage went up $300 in one monthâ€), she’s talking about the amount in arrears that she agreed to pay back.
While she was reneging on her mortgage IOUS, she managed to collect rent on her basement (for which she was taken to court) and rack up a criminal record on charges of theft and second degree assault:
In the Huffington Post, ACORN’s Bertha Lewis crowed about the nationwide MSM attention their Baltimore break-in received:
In Baltimore, ACORN member Donna Hanks re-took her home. Foreclosed on last fall, the house has stood empty since then, a stark reminder of the failure of the system. But Donna joined with 30 ACORN Home Defenders to liberate her home from the bank. Her act of civil disobedience was covered by 2 radio stations, 2 TV stations, the Baltimore Sun, and the Huffington Post.
Donna used bolt cutters to break the lock to the door and re-enter the home. Unfortunately, in the six short months since the home was seized, it has been extensively damaged, essentially partially gutted. The toilets are missing, and the upstairs ceiling is badly damaged. The greatest tragedy here is that Donna worked for months with ACORN sister organization ACORN Housing Corporation to try to get the bank to modify the loan so it could be affordable, but they refused, taking the home and now allowing it to be a haven for squatters and a target of looters.
Bullcrap. The house was sold seven months ago after two years of court-negotiated attempts to allow Hanks to dig herself out of her debt hole. The only squatter here is Donna Hanks. The only looters here are the ACORN racketeers. The foreclosure is not the criminal act. This is:
And now you know…the rest of the story.
Before you feel too sorry for this criminal scammer, read the rest of the story: http://michellemalkin.com/
Jackson/RAINBOW
Sharpton/NAN
Obama/ACORN
The Africanization of America
Sanders
Great job on the research.
Like I said in another post, you don’t deserve jack shit if you don’t pay your note, period.
There is always a story involved in incidents like this, I’m glad the bastards are going to jail.
And…. how much money is in the “Stimulus Package” for ACORN, how many of our tax dollars? For these wannabe Thugs
This shit needs to stop now!
RR
MARK - the banks or ‘we’ did not put people on the streets, they put themselves there….for whatever reason, and as you can see…..this government stimulus and takeover is not doing any good for the DOW, and the DOW’s performance is indicative of the health of our economy.
Worst case scenario is ending up on the street. I have lived there (its been a while). Even there in this country is better off than many places around the world. Life isn’t easy for anyone, but I’d rather be house less here than anywhere else.
Its amazing how much good stuff (food included) is thrown out. My dad had a good job and still pulled anything and everything out of those big metal cans for years. It’s a real rush once you get past your ego.
Sorry but 96% of people are paying their mortgage.
Once again the magority is bailing out the minority.
The states that have higher numbers than normal are CA, Arizona, FLA, NM. They all have a high population of illegals.
Sorry but having people squatting in these homes is not going to help the neighborhood either.
Sometimes life has difficult situations that cannot be ran from.
Our society is kicking the can down the road all in the name of fear but making it worse for our kids.
poeple need to man up! This country was built on determination, courage and sacrafice.
I am a renter. I could have bought a home a couple years ago but I did not because I knew I wouldnt be able to afford it, also I worked in the home construction industry.
Some of the new neighborhoods we built QUICKLY became “hoods” after the constuction was complete and we were not babysitting. It was crazy
When people are giving a handout, something for nothing there is no respect or value and these people treated their homes as such.
Ungrateful, intitled P.O.S. barack Obabies