LETTERS
A Modern-day Mafia
A Modern-day Mafia growing in subdivisions that is the question. Question: What do HOA (homeowners associations) and CIC (common interest communities) boards of directors and their attorneys, as well as elected public officials do, in Teller County and elsewhere, when they sense their reign of ecological and financial tyranny may be rapidly coming to an end?
Answer: It happens that here in Teller County, and nationally, they arrogantly continue to assert their control over the homeowners and voters they are suppose to be intelligently and rationally and fairly representing, even when they are faced with an almost certain possibility of guilty convictions if/when they are brought to court by those they torment and financially fleece. Or, they spend (or abscond with) as much of the tax payers’ and/or HOA/CIC homeowners’ money as they can get their hands on.
Why do they do that? It appears to be mostly because they “know” (psychologically speaking) no other way of living. They are very clever when it comes to shady or outright crooked dealings, or taking advantage of the vulnerable among us. But they don’t appear to have the slightest inclination to “ do what’s right” when it comes to fair and legal dealings with others- even the members of their own “cabals” when they no longer need them.
Sounds like something you remember from a long time ago? Back then you probably heard about it from your own grandparents. You probably did not totally forget it because it was so awful. “It” was “the Mafia,” which some say still operates in various parts of the world- including the United States. But today it is not called the Mafia anymore. It goes by a more catchall term: corruption. But the style and operation of these “corrupt,” Mafia- like people hasn’t changed. They still want to control everything and everyone around them. And the reasons they want to do that are still the same: power and money.
Way back, the Mafia was stopped pretty much cold in their tracks by federal criminal laws called ”RICO,” the “ Racketeer Influenced and Corruption Act.” Then in the 1980’s, RICO was expanded to allow civil claims to be brought by any person injured in their business or property because of a RICO violation. Any individual who succeeded in establishing a civil RICO claim would automatically receive judgment in the amount of three times their actual damages. They would also receive (from the defendants) their costs and attorneys’ fees while the guilty would be sentenced to, at a minimum, 20 years in prison. So, by the late 1980’s RICO was one of the most commonly asserted claims in federal court. Tyrannized and swindled folks, were, and still are going to federal court in droves with civil claims of wrongdoing under RICO, which they generally won- and continue to win.
Today, RICO is almost never applied to the Mafia, Instead, it is applied to corrupt individuals, businesses, and others who tried to, and succeeded in, and tyrannizing and taking financial advantage of innocent others. In California, for example, HOA/CIC homeowners are now gratefully seeing their property management companies being named in RICO actions, along with their board members and their attorneys. Here in Colorado, HOA/CIC homeowners are also getting very excited about RICO legal actions.
RICO legal actions are also regularly being filed against public officials for corruption and fraud-including , as I understand it, those who operate in local building departments, as well as the entire building industry ( remember the construction defects that Florissant’s Bill Johnson, and other Teller county homeowners suffered recently?). RICO charges against public officials often include extortion, mail and wire fraud, public contracts which involve conspiring to violate racketeering laws in furtherance of their corrupt activities, providing numerous things of value( including money and luxury items) to public officials in return for their official acts, etc. The harm done to one’s state, one’s own community, and to individuals by this wide spread public corruption has demanded that RICO investigations of those charges be pursued aggressively.
I am told that there is also another successful legal way HOA/CIC homeowners and all Colorado voters to deal with those who are being tyrannized and financially devastated by HOA/CIC boards and their lawyers, as well as their local and state “public servants.” This other legal way punishes the guilty in essentially the same ways that RICO action does, but the money damages awarded to the innocent by the courts are much higher than with RICO, i.e., often in the millions, in addition to the guilty serving a very long time in prison. But this kind of legal action is a state legal action, instead of a federal one.
Comments welcome for A Modern-day Mafia
Stay tuned Jan Jackson
Florissant May 22, 2007 The Mountain JP
https://aboutdruidhillshoa.com
http://druidhillshomeownersassociation.com
This is a very eye opening article, I hope that the small group who hide themselves behind the “Druid Hills POA” pay close attention. Something is very wrong with those people.
Thanks! The author of this article had her Subdivision Association, disbanded.
I agree with you completely, they have done nothing in good faith. The small handouts, dumpster, chipper days and contributions are minimal compared to the harm they have caused.