83-year-old 'penniless' after dispute over yard
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47764An elderly woman in Tequesta, Fla., stands to lose everything in a dispute with local officials because she believed it was her constitutional right to keep her yard the way she wanted it – even if that meant refusing to trim back overgrown vegetation.
For 22 years, village officials say they pleaded with Hattie Siegel, 83, to clean up her yard because, in the words of Mayor Jim Humpage, over time it had become so overgrown with vegetation it had become an eyesore and a harbor for rats and snakes.
But Siegel kept refusing, telling NBC-TV affiliate WPTV she has become "too tired" to deal with the dispute.
So the village took action.
For five years officials levied a fine of $1,000 a day against Siegel, hoping to convince her to comply with village codes requiring a better-kept lawn. Eventually, the infraction totaled nearly $1.8 million, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported.
At that point the village took Siegel to court seeking judgment, and in November 2004, a circuit judge issued a ruling of foreclosure against her property and assets to satisfy the fine.
The village then sold the judgment to Silver Fidelity Trust, a Lake Worth, Fla., company, for $300,000.
In an interview with WPTV, Humpage was adamant the village's action was justified.
Jim Humpage, mayor of Tequesta, Fla.
"When we did intervene at one point … we took out seven dump trunks of vegetation," he told the affiliate's news team.
"I feel badly for Mrs. Siegel," he said, "but in the same breath, do I just ignore the 7,000 other residents of the Village of Tequesta? And if I do, if this were to escalate into other properties, where does one draw the line?"
So, yesterday in bankruptcy court, Judge Steven Friedman agreed she must pay the fine. To do so, she would have to liquidate her assets, which includes most of five of the properties she owned.
"It's terribly unfortunate you have to be here," Friedman told her, according to the paper.
A home in Charleston, S.C., along with multiple properties in Jupiter, Fla. will have to be sold, said the reports.
At one point, Siegel reportedly was worth about $1 million – assets she believed she could use to help pay for nursing home or other long-term care should she need it. But with the bankruptcy court's ruling, she could wind up "penniless," the Sun-Sentinel reported.
"Now I don't have a home to go to in Charleston. I'm just sick about it," she told WPTV, which reported that she won't lose her main home in Tequesta because "it's homesteaded," and therefore not eligible to be liquidated.
Also, the paper reported, Siegel's attorney, John Metzger – who agreed to take her case pro bono after he was contacted about it by Gov. Jeb Bush's office – says the village had no right to sell its claim to Silver Fidelity, an opinion he says is backed by a similar ruling from the attorney general's office.
Metzger will argue her fine is excessive under provisions of the Eighth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
I think $1.8 million is ridiculous. The woman broke the law and deserves to pay for it, but nearly $2 million? That's just stupid.