Article Courtesy of WINK NEWS
Published November 12 , 2016
BONITA SPRINGS — Confusion over the ownership of a Bonita
Springs condo led to the sudden eviction of the mother who had just given
birth to premature twins.
Michelle Turner said U.S. marshals knocked on her door without warning to
serve her an eviction notice. She had no clue that the owner of her home at
The Tides at Pelican Landing had forfeited it to the federal government as
part of an agreement in a health care fraud case.
“I was actually just
cleaning my kids bottles and I got a knock on the door and
the U.S. marshals came in and of course I freak out,” Turner
said. “… He basically told me he was coming to give me a
notice to vacate because the owner of this condo was going
to prison and they needed basically to seize this property.”
Turner quickly discovered The Tides at Pelican Landing was
not the owner of the condo unit she was renting. But Turner
was confused because she only communicated with the manager
of The Tides and wrote her check each month to The Tides.
The property’s real owner was Irina Krutoyarsky, who was
sentenced to five years in federal prison for health care
fraud. As part of Krutoyarsky’s agreement with the
government, she had to pay back millions of dollars and
forfeit more than a dozen properties she owned, including
the condo Turner was renting. |
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“I was under the impression that The Tides owned this, so
I had no idea what owner [the marshal] was talking about,” said Turner. “I
went into the [The Tides front] office just to verify because I thought
maybe they got the wrong condo.”
The WINK News Call for Action team tried to figure out where the
misunderstanding may have begun. According to federal court documents, the
government sent notification to The Tides at Pelican Landing and their
management company telling them that the property had been forfeited.
That letter went out around the middle of December 2015, five months before
a Deputy U.S. marshal showed up at Turner’s doorstep. Turner maintains the
HOA never told her about the forfeiture.
Our team of investigators called numerous times, sent emails and even tried
to speak with someone in person, but the HOA and management company refused
to answer any questions.
“They [the HOA] never said anything to me,” Turner said. “I continued to
keep paying rent to them. … I have two small kids and I don’t understand how
they could just not care or at least be considerate and say, ‘This is what’s
going on, you might want to, you know, find a place just in case.'”
Michelle has since moved into her new home and says her twins, who just
celebrated their first birthday, are doing wonderfully. But she also says
she has learned her lesson and will always be checking first to see who
really owns any property she plans to lease.
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