OFF THE WIRE
Theodore Visner and Kathy Smith are having trouble
getting their story out...
(MT. PLEASANT, MI) - U.S. Navy
veteran Ted Visner and his wife, Kathy Smith of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, have
been living out a nightmare. It started two and a half years ago, when the
family fell victim to an apparent real estate scam by a local sheriff's
department employee.
Ted Visner says they bought their former home on a
land contract, only to learn seven months later, that the seller, Isabella
County Sheriff's Dept. employee Shelly Sweet, was not making monthly payments on
the house. A bank foreclosed on the property, all unbeknownst to the
Visner/Smith family.
Ted Visner, who builds custom homes for a living,
said, "Although we were paying Sweet every month on the purchase of the
property, she had not been paying the underlying mortgage and the home fell into
foreclosure." I asked Visner if he had records of those payments, he said he
does, including canceled checks. You won't believe what happened
next.
"On a weekend Sweet knew that we would be out of town, she offered
the contents of our home to her friends and coworkers at the Isabella County
Sheriff’s Department, claiming we had abandoned the home. Many took her up on
her free offer deal and took over $55,000 dollars worth of our personal
property."
Property
Vanishes
$55,000 is a big number, but Visner said Sweet availed
all of their personal belongings and private property to anyone who would take
it. Visner tells Salem-News the items taken included beds, dressers, appliances,
his wife's wedding dress which was hermetically sealed, kids toys, sports
equipment, and a whole lot more.
"My kids couldn't play or participate in
sports for the next two years. Other items that disappeared included tax
records... nothing has been recovered."
The story seems blatantly
criminal in nature, with police banding together to help off their property in
its entirety. Visner said, "She just put a sign out and let anybody have what
they wanted, she didn't remember who was there. In her own deposition she admits
to giving our stuff away."
Visner says Sweet told her employer, the
sheriff's department that Visner and his wife weren't making payments, while
Visner is able to prove via canceled checks to Sweet that they were indeed
paying. "It was blatantly untrue," Visner added. "There is no evidence to
support what the county did, it all shows what we are saying though."
He
says the experience has been extremely hard for his family, adding, "I don't
have any criminal background, I served six years in the Navy on submarines, my
wife and I have kids, we don't deserve this, nobody in the world deserves
this."
Visner, Smith and their kids, returned from their weekend away on
Monday September 27, 2010, to discover that they were locked out of their own
home. Visner called the law enforcement agency that Sweet worked for.
"We
had NOT been evicted nor had we abandoned the property. The woman had convinced
friends and coworkers that we had never paid her, and that were trashing the
house and had forced her into foreclosure -- none of which were true."
It
would take a day before the family was allowed to go back inside of the home,
and that is when Smith and Visner learned that 95% of the home's contents had
been stolen.
"A sheriff deputy named 'Steinert' came to our home three
times that day and only assisted his coworker while the under-sheriff, sheriff
and PA refused to help us after they recognized the totality of the situation,"
Visner said, adding that the "situation" was 6+ coworkers of Sweet having
entered their home and receiving stolen property, which for anyone else in the
world is Theft.
Instead, Visner was arrested for "Misuse of 911" on the
deputy's third visit. "The county investigated the crime for almost four months
and during this time, I moved my family out of Isabella County for safety, I
could not move with them because my indefinitely delayed arraignment still
loomed over my head."
Visner says after losing the home he shared with
his family, and 95% of their belongings to the sheriff's department, that the
prosecutor's office ignored their complaints and still refused to investigate
"their employees". In his words, "Over two and a half years have passed now with
law enforcement officials doing nothing except covering for one
another."
Visner says the underlying crime was the conspiracy to deprive
his family’s constitutional rights - that is a federal crime during the
commission of which, he asserts that he was kidnapped (arrested) by Deputy
Steinert on the "bullshit charge" of misusing 911. Violation of Title 18 U.S.C.
§§ 241 and 242 is a
federal felony crime where the
offenders could be sentenced to death if killing or kidnapping
occur.
Visner says the following people participated in the crimes
against his family.
Isabella County Sheriff Deputy Clinton
Steinert
Isabella County Sheriff Department Clerk Shelly Sweet
Isabella
County under-sheriff John Tellis
Isabella County Sheriff Leo
Mioduszewski
Isabella County Board of Commissioners (seven or
eight)
Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Burdick
(out-going)
Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney Risa Scully
(incoming)
"Our story needs to go viral, people need to know that they
have to stand up for their rights, when we stop standing for our rights we won't
have them anymore." He concluded that statement by adding that you only have
rights when people in positions of authority listen.
"The Attorney
General is dismissing this serious crime... For my family and I, there is no
recourse, at least not yet. The AG prohibits complaints of police misconduct and
civil rights being violated. I just wrote a letter to the ACLU and explained
this, I haven't heard back from them yet," Visner said.
Salem-News
attempted to reach Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski, he has not returned
our call in regard to the Visner case. An employee of the sheriff's office told
Salem-News that the agency does not have a public information officer.
Is it possible to receive an "F minus" as a public safety agency? If so,
based on the above information, that is definitely the grade the Isabella County
Sheriff's Dept. in Michigan deserves. You can draw your own conclusions, but
these cops appear to take law enforcement corruption and government misuse of
power to all new levels.
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/may042013/visner-michigan-tk.php
