OR OR - Stephanie Warner, 43, Ruch, 4 Jul 2013 - #2

[Lilibet]

Although obtaining a property by "adverse possession" (squatting) is very difficult, it appears that members of the Sovereign Citizens movement are invoking bogus common law to try to pull this off. This article refers to people occupying vacant homes, but IMO Ames' ideology could have motivated him to try this with Stephanie's home, brainwashing her into cooperation. JMO, MOO, etc.

If earthquakes, wildfires and foreclosures weren't enough, a new threat to California real estate has emerged in recent months: squatters who invoke the tactics of a radical antigovernment movement to occupy vacant homes. Describing their brazen takeovers as "home adoptions," groups in Sacramento, San Diego and Riverside counties have filed bogus deeds to claim ownership of luxury homes, justifying their actions with a mix of "common-law" theory, so-called sovereign immunity and references to the Old Testament.

Vacant homes have always appealed to squatters in dire economic times, but these groups rationalize their takeovers with tactics lifted from the "sovereign citizens" movement, a far-right antigovernment ideology that embraces the idea — usually wrapped in rambling, mystical legal terminology — that people can declare themselves beyond the reach of police and the courts.

The "common law" cited by Simmons and thousands of people in the larger antigovernment "Patriot" movement refers to a fictitious body of law under which the government supposedly cannot impose regulations on "sovereign citizens." Scams involving common-law documents, none of them with any real legal meaning, were prevalent in the militia movement of the 1990s.

http://www.splcenter.org/get-inform...owse-all-issues/2009/fall/sovereign-squatters

 

[Lilibet]

Can a quit claim (or lack of?) enable a scammer to (illegally, of course)"sell" a property while still retaining ownership? In other words, take money for nothing?

It sounds like that's exactly what happened to the person asking the question you linked. It could be that "Cathy" was the scammer or that she was in on it with the Lennie Ames referred to. Or, to be charitable, it could have just been a clerical error.

Basically, this person had given Cathy about $5000 for the property and done some fixing up. But Lennie still legally owned it because his quit claim hadn't been properly filed. So this person couldn't sell it without getting Lennie to sign a new quitclaim. The lawyer advised her not to let on to Lennie that he still owned it.

I'd love to know what happened in that case and who Cathy really is. It sounds to me like Ames has a history of using his legal knowledge for illegal purposes. JMO Of course if he really believes the whole Sovereign Citizen schtick, he thinks he's within his rights. :banghead:

 

[elmomom]

This is a first for me. I feel that even if LA isn't responsible for Stephanie's disappearance, I still 100% hope he is incarcerated for a long! long time. I don't even care if they have to make up charges.
Sorry, I read through all the threads over the past two days and I am just sickened by LA and his beliefs.

 

[Lilibet]

This is a first for me. I feel that even if LA isn't responsible for Stephanie's disappearance, I still 100% hope he is incarcerated for a long! long time. I don't even care if they have to make up charges.
Sorry, I read through all the threads over the past two days and I am just sickened by LA and his beliefs.

Welcome! :seeya: That's a lot to swallow in a couple of days! Thanks for reading.

I doubt any charges will be made up, and I don't really want that to happen, but I know what you mean. The irony is that he will likely claim they have been made up anyway. His recent video shows quite a persecution complex. JMO

 

[Irish_Eyes]

Wow you guys! It took me two days to read all of the info on Stephanie's case - you've done some great stuff to help find her and I hope it works.

I'm not a lawyer but I spent years working for real estate title attorneys and doing title examination (though not in Oregon.) So all this discussion of quit-claim deeds, produce the note, adverse possession, foreclosure, etc. makes perfect sense to me. I started to write about it and it was sooo long, and I realized it was probably more than you ever needed or wanted to know. So instead I'm just going to say that if you think it's a useful road of inquiry and have any questions, I'd be happy to answer WITH the caveat that although I have lots of experience working in this field I am NOT a lawyer and am NOT giving legal advice - just stating how it all works as I recall.

 

[Dicentra]

Curious as to the status of her home at present - is it empty? Was there a will leaving it to someone?
Interesting about "produce the note" - doing that, does allow for her house to remain out of foreclosure while there's no one around to pay the mortgage?

Is that something someone would want in place before she went missing to ensure ownership of her house wouldn't go to a bank?

Hi Steve - To the best of my knowledge, there was no will in place and the house is now vacated.

 

[Lilibet]

Wow you guys! It took me two days to read all of the info on Stephanie's case - you've done some great stuff to help find her and I hope it works.

I'm not a lawyer but I spent years working for real estate title attorneys and doing title examination (though not in Oregon.) So all this discussion of quit-claim deeds, produce the note, adverse possession, foreclosure, etc. makes perfect sense to me. I started to write about it and it was sooo long, and I realized it was probably more than you ever needed or wanted to know. So instead I'm just going to say that if you think it's a useful road of inquiry and have any questions, I'd be happy to answer WITH the caveat that although I have lots of experience working in this field I am NOT a lawyer and am NOT giving legal advice - just stating how it all works as I recall.

BBM

Welcome Irish_Eyes! :seeya:

Thanks so much for reading everything. I will take you up on your offer to pick your brain. I understand that you are not a lawyer and that this is just your personal experience and opinion based on working in an office dealing with real estate law.

I would love to know if you think we're even onto something that could be feasible.

I didn't know about the "produce the note" thing until Dicentra mentioned it this morning. Everything I know I learned from my dear friend Google. I'm thrilled that you're here with some actual expertise. A scheme to get some kind of lease, pressure Stephanie not to pay her mortgage, insist on the bank producing the note when they try to foreclose, do adverse possession (squat)...it all seems to fit with the Ames we know about.

But do you think it's a crazy, impossible idea or could he have possibly pulled it off in the ten years he would need in Oregon?

Would a lease give him any rights, even when they broke up or when she disappeared?

Does the person holding the second have more rights?

Or could Ames have stonewalled them right along with the bank, with or without Stephanie?

If this could have worked, was there any advantage to him if she disappeared?

Or did he really need her and would whatever happened to her ruin his plans?

He and his son's family moved into Stephanie's soon after she disappeared. It seems that he was possibly staking his claim, so I wonder if this could have been planned all along. With or without Stephanie, this whole process would have at least provided him with an inexpensive place to live while it played out. Stephanie would be the ultimate loser if the plan didn't work and she ended up losing her house. As it looks now, she lost everything.

Sorry about this jumble of questions. I'm obviously looking for a motive and trying to run scenarios here. Any thoughts you have would be so welcome!

 

[Irish_Eyes]

1) No way could he have pulled off ten years of adverse possession, IMO. However I don't know for a fact it would have to be ten years, I don't know the law in Oregon. I don't even know what it is here to be honest. First of all, it's such a rare thing to begin with. I'm not sure in 7 years I ever saw an adverse possession case. I've seen frauds go down and the police get involved (also rare), I've seen lots of things, but never that.

2) I don't know enough about Oregon law to say about the lease. I know that during the mortgage meltdown it was an issue that came up. Tenants with valid leases who were stunned to learn their properties had been foreclosed upon because their landlords had not been paying their mortgages. There were enough displaced people in some of the harder hit locales that discussions about strengthening tenants rights protections in the law were discussed, but I was getting out of the business by then, so I really don't know what became of it in different areas. One thing is that it wouldn't mean he would get to stay there forever.

3) The person holding a second mortgage is usually pretty out of luck in a foreclosure. The first and best lien in a foreclosure is- you guessed it - the government. Usually this means any local real estate taxes owed get paid first, but it can also apply to federal or state liens for unpaid taxes, child support liens, etc. Once the government gets theirs then the order is the order the liens were filed. So the first mortgage would get paid first, then the second mortgage. Foreclosures usually auction off for below their appraised value if they sell at all, so after the government gets theirs and the attorneys fees, sheriff's fees, etc. the first mortgage holder doesn't even get all their money and the second mortgage guy has to write it all of as loss.

The whole produce the note thing is a real deal. The two most important things in a loan closing package are the note and the mortgage. The mortgage gets filed at the county so if it is lost the county can always produce a certified copy for legal purposes. The note gets sent directly back to the lender. Except when it doesn't. Or when it does and they lose it. Or they sell it to another bank and the other bank loses it. This happened in the past. A lot. One of the title companies I worked at was less organized then the others and I know every now and then I found an original note lying in a file. Worse, this was months or years down the road and the lender had never even called about it - they didn't even notice they never recieved it until I sent it to them. Yes, if your lender can't produce the note you can fight the foreclosure. However, you'll never really know unless you get to foreclosure, so it's a really, REALLY bad idea to just stop paying your mortgage because maybe you will be the one out of 100 whose note they can't find.

I can't think of a reason why he would have wanted her to stop paying her mortgage unless he wanted her to just have more money around to spend on him, or more money sitting in her bank account. It would be pretty delusional, IMO, to think a strategy cobbled together out of some of these legal elements would actually work in this case.

If he was seriously looking at an adverse possession strategy it's worth noting that if the owner of the land occupies or uses the land, adverse possession cannot be claimed. (According to Wikipedia, lol. Like I said, I haven't had any experience with adverse possession.) Again all of this from a non-lawyer, not giving legal advice, just stating what I believe to be true.

 

[OUOTP]

I don't believe LE was digging for a body; they did take what appeared to be samples of something (soil?).

(SNIPPED)

While sleuthing, I found this interesting article:
https://www.soils.org/publications/sh/articles/53/5/14

 

[Sad Eyes]

(SNIPPED)

While sleuthing, I found this interesting article:
https://www.soils.org/publications/sh/articles/53/5/14

Very interesting article. Thank you for posting it. Oh, and welcome back!

 

[Lilibet]

(SNIPPED)

While sleuthing, I found this interesting article:
https://www.soils.org/publications/sh/articles/53/5/14

Great work OUOTP! Fascinating stuff. I'm going to quote some of it here so the forensic relevance is clearly seen.

The Value of Soil in Criminal Investigations

The aim of forensic soil analysis is to associate a questioned soil sample taken from an item, such as a shovel, vehicle, shoes, or clothing, with a control soil sampled from a specific known location (Fig. 1b, Fig. 2). Soil materials were identified by Fitzpatrick (2009) as powerful, perhaps ideal, pieces of contact trace evidence for the following six reasons:

1. Soil is highly individualistic in that there are an almost infinite number of different soil types, and soils may change rapidly over very short distances both horizontally and vertically, enabling forensic examiners to distinguish between soil samples.

2. Soil materials are easily described and characterized by color and by using various analytical methods such as XRD (mineralogy) and spectroscopy (chemistry).

3. Soil has a strong capacity to transfer and stick, especially the fine clay- and silt-size fractions.

4. Unlike the more obvious bright transfer colors of blood, lipstick smears, and paint, soil is nearly invisible. Fine soil materials, especially when they impregnate vehicle carpeting, shoes or clothing, are often not visible to the naked eye; a suspect will often make little effort to remove them.

5. Soil materials are easily located and collected using hand lenses or light microscopes when inspecting crime scenes or examining items of physical evidence.

6. National and international computerized databases of soil profile data and maps can be readily accessed by police or soil scientists through the Internet. for example, the Australian Soil Resources Information System (ASRIS), where a soil map can be produced by downloading information directly from the internet (www.asris.gov.au; Johnston et al., 2003).

 

[Sad Eyes]

Unfortunately, I don’t have time – but if anyone is willing to find a K9 expert within the WS posting community they may be able to chime in here.

sniped for space


Neptune I hope I am not doing something against the rules by listing members, but I found this list of people that are members on WB that are specialist in the K-9 catagories. Below is the list and what they are specialized in. I hope this helps. How can we reach out to these sleuthers to review the thread and give their professional opinions?

Animal Search and Rescue:

Sarx
Oriah
JustToSeeYouSmile
Trackergd


Dog trainer:

GrainneDhu



K9 SAR & Police
SAR management:

justtoseeyousmile
k9snoop
Oriah
Sarx
K-9 Chaser
indepmo
MTrooper
CALSAR

 

[La Louve]

I have seen Sarx post on the Dylan Redwine threads, answering questions relative to the dog searches conducted near the lake. I think you can PM them and ask them the question and invite them to this thread.

 

[Lilibet]

1) No way could he have pulled off ten years of adverse possession, IMO. However I don't know for a fact it would have to be ten years, I don't know the law in Oregon. I don't even know what it is here to be honest. First of all, it's such a rare thing to begin with. I'm not sure in 7 years I ever saw an adverse possession case. I've seen frauds go down and the police get involved (also rare), I've seen lots of things, but never that.

2) I don't know enough about Oregon law to say about the lease. I know that during the mortgage meltdown it was an issue that came up. Tenants with valid leases who were stunned to learn their properties had been foreclosed upon because their landlords had not been paying their mortgages. There were enough displaced people in some of the harder hit locales that discussions about strengthening tenants rights protections in the law were discussed, but I was getting out of the business by then, so I really don't know what became of it in different areas. One thing is that it wouldn't mean he would get to stay there forever.

3) The person holding a second mortgage is usually pretty out of luck in a foreclosure. The first and best lien in a foreclosure is- you guessed it - the government. Usually this means any local real estate taxes owed get paid first, but it can also apply to federal or state liens for unpaid taxes, child support liens, etc. Once the government gets theirs then the order is the order the liens were filed. So the first mortgage would get paid first, then the second mortgage. Foreclosures usually auction off for below their appraised value if they sell at all, so after the government gets theirs and the attorneys fees, sheriff's fees, etc. the first mortgage holder doesn't even get all their money and the second mortgage guy has to write it all of as loss.

The whole produce the note thing is a real deal. The two most important things in a loan closing package are the note and the mortgage. The mortgage gets filed at the county so if it is lost the county can always produce a certified copy for legal purposes. The note gets sent directly back to the lender. Except when it doesn't. Or when it does and they lose it. Or they sell it to another bank and the other bank loses it. This happened in the past. A lot. One of the title companies I worked at was less organized then the others and I know every now and then I found an original note lying in a file. Worse, this was months or years down the road and the lender had never even called about it - they didn't even notice they never recieved it until I sent it to them. Yes, if your lender can't produce the note you can fight the foreclosure. However, you'll never really know unless you get to foreclosure, so it's a really, REALLY bad idea to just stop paying your mortgage because maybe you will be the one out of 100 whose note they can't find.

I can't think of a reason why he would have wanted her to stop paying her mortgage unless he wanted her to just have more money around to spend on him, or more money sitting in her bank account. It would be pretty delusional, IMO, to think a strategy cobbled together out of some of these legal elements would actually work in this case.

If he was seriously looking at an adverse possession strategy it's worth noting that if the owner of the land occupies or uses the land, adverse possession cannot be claimed. (According to Wikipedia, lol. Like I said, I haven't had any experience with adverse possession.) Again all of this from a non-lawyer, not giving legal advice, just stating what I believe to be true.

Bold, underline and color by me.

Thanks so much for this info, Irish Eyes. I think the operative word here is "delusional." If you've watched any of the videos by Ames, there is a lot of delusion going on (but of course, we are all "sheeple" who refuse to see what he's trying to tell us.) I certainly don't mean that he's mentally ill.

I can see him possibly using a "stick it to the blood-sucking banks" argument to persuade Stephanie to stop paying her mortgage. I'm not sure she would stop paying the second to people she knows, though.

It's also very telling that for him to obtain the property by adverse possession, Stephanie needed to be gone!

It is 10 years in Oregon that he would need to live there for adverse possession. I'm not sure he would actually think that he could pull that off, but he is rumored to have squatted before, so he seems to be persistent. At least it was free rent while it lasted. And if there really is gold on her property that he could have found, that's a bonus.

I'm going to do some more research about refusing to pay a mortgage. I've started reading the attached article from Harpers Magazine called "Stop Payment! A homeowners revolt against the banks." (Warning--obscene language). :blushing: I'm not sure I quite understand how it works, but I can imagine someone with Ames mindset and legal knowledge jumping on this and running with it.

http://harpers.org/archive/2012/01/stop-payment-a-homeowners-revolt-against-the-banks/

Attached is a document Ames wrote in 2008 to the USDA-Forest Service about proposed changes in mining regulations. You can see that he is very smart and thorough.

http://plp2.org/forums/archive/index.php/t-126.html


This is all JMO, MOO.

 

[Sad Eyes]

I have seen Sarx post on the Dylan Redwine threads, answering questions relative to the dog searches conducted near the lake. I think you can PM them and ask them the question and invite them to this thread.

Thanks La Louve. I am going to go to the Dylan Redwine thread & read up on read up on those posts. I appreciate the info.

 

[La Louve]

Thanks La Louve. I am going to go to the Dylan Redwine thread & read up on read up on those posts. I appreciate the info.

you're welcome

Here's a post from Sarx in one of Dylan's threads. Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CO - Dylan Redwine missing from Vallecito ***SEARCH DISCUSSION ONLY***

 

[Sad Eyes]

you're welcome

Here's a post from Sarx in one of Dylan's threads. Websleuths Crime Sleuthing Community - View Single Post - CO - Dylan Redwine missing from Vallecito ***SEARCH DISCUSSION ONLY***

La Louve I wish I would have read this an hour ago. I have been reading Dylan's thread for an hour and it is such a sad case. I must have missed this post because I was coming back on here to ask you where it was. Thank you for posting it for me. I sure pray that the outcome of Stephanie's case is much better than Dylan's was. I think I have to shut the computer off for the rest of the night after reading poor Dylan's horror story. :crying:
I will focus on praying for Stephanie tonight. lease:
Goodnight all. fftheair:

 

[La Louve]

La Louve I wish I would have read this an hour ago. I have been reading Dylan's thread for an hour and it is such a sad case. I must have missed this post because I was coming back on here to ask you where it was. Thank you for posting it for me. I sure pray that the outcome of Stephanie's case is much better than Dylan's was. I think I have to shut the computer off for the rest of the night after reading poor Dylan's horror story. :crying:
I will focus on praying for Stephanie tonight. lease:
Goodnight all. fftheair:

I'm sorry it took me so long to get the right thread in my post. I knew there were so many threads for Dylan that you could spend days looking for Sarx's posts.

Praying that Stephanie is found, and praying for justice for Dylan.

sweet dreams Sad Eyes

 

[Dicentra]

Another funny Stephanie Story to make Sad Eyes Smile!

I am holding Lily - or rather she is holding me! Lil's is purring like a mad-cat, rubbing up against me and I dare not put her down due to her destructive nature! She's a black and white DSH, with an adorable question-mark tail, whom Stephanie referred to as "My devil child." (Make sure you "hear" this story with a touch of a New Orleans accent).

Steph was at my house doing laundry and she was out working in the garden when it was ready to come out of the dryer, so I took out the laundry and put it on our "laundry chair" and started folding. That's when I noticed the small, rat-chewed holes in her cotton undies. Try as I might, I couldn't figure out HOW so many small holes had been made; the undergarments didn't appear to be especially old or worn, just full of small holes! When Sissy came in to take a break, I asked her HOW in God's name she'd gotten those holes in her clothes. She started laughing and said, "That's thanks to my Devil Child, Lily! She LOVES to chew holes in natural fibers, especially cotton!" Then she picked up a fitted sheet and displayed the holes Lil's had made in them. Lily had ruined most of Steph's good clothes before she understood the level of commitment Lily has to chewing.

Many people would have given up and gotten rid of Lily, but NOT Steph! She hung on to that cat for 9 years. When I started looking for friends that might adopt Stephanie's "babies" I knew where Lily would go; she is with me, and I'm sure Stephanie, wherever she is, is laughing at the fact that I've inherited her most beloved, destructive baby, Lily!

P.S. Lily has two lovely beds; one in a chair in the Mud room and one in a warm corner of the water-tower (that is attached to my house). My son brings in Lily for lovies every morning and we both bring her in (supervised and kept far from the laundry chair) at night for some extra TLC.

My heart and prayers are with you, Sad Eyes.

 

[zwiebel]

sniped for space


Neptune I hope I am not doing something against the rules by listing members, but I found this list of people that are members on WB that are specialist in the K-9 catagories. Below is the list and what they are specialized in. I hope this helps. How can we reach out to these sleuthers to review the thread and give their professional opinions?

Animal Search and Rescue:

Sarx
Oriah
JustToSeeYouSmile
Trackergd


Dog trainer:

GrainneDhu



K9 SAR & Police
SAR management:

justtoseeyousmile
k9snoop
Oriah
Sarx
K-9 Chaser
indepmo
MTrooper
CALSAR

Just a little bit of info that may help - these guys are really pushed for time, because they are so often out searching, and bringing our missing home. If you ask them to read through an entire thread they probably won't be able to do it.

It is hard work, but if anyone can make a short summary of the case in a single post, especially highlighting any SAR issues, then direct our SAR people to that, then they are more likely to be able to help. If that post is then also linked into someone's signature, it makes it easier to find for everyone else too.

There are examples in mine, for Bob. He has his own SAR thread and you can maybe pick up some tips there? You'll often find Grainne and Oriah there. They are lovely.

It will be a good day when Stephanie comes home.