By Stephanie Hoops
Updated Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Danielle Earl, seated on the tail end of her truck, waits for instructions from her attorney outside the house she and her family were evicted from Tuesday. She believes people fraudulently assigned themselves rights to her property.
Sheriff’s deputies evicted Jim and Danielle Earl’s family from their Simi Valley house Tuesday morning and turned it over to the new owner, Thousand Oaks-based Conejo Capital Partners.
The 11-member family claims they were wrongfully evicted after a foreclosure, and a few weeks ago they forced their way back into the house. Relying on advice from their lawyer, Michael T. Pines, the Earls have vowed to retake the house again.
The family wasn’t at home when Ventura County Sheriff’s Department deputies arrived Tuesday and changed the locks. They had spent the night at a rental house. But Tuesday afternoon, Danielle Earl and two of her adult children— Michael, 23 and Shaundel, 18 — went to their house on Mustang Drive and spotted some of their things in the driveway. A sheriff’s eviction notice and a giant “no trespassing” sign hung on the gate.
They left to call their attorney, and when they returned, Danielle Earl said her things were no longer in the driveway.
In their place was a big, white storage bin and she assumed their belongings were in it.
“Apparently we’re being re-evicted from our home,” she said, referring to the fact that they were evicted in July as well. “In my opinion, they’re stealing my stuff out of my house.”
Pines called the removal of the family’s belongings “completely illegal” and said he would send armed guards to assist a locksmith in helping them change the locks again.
But no one came to the home and by 5 p.m. Danielle Earl said she was leaving.
Simi Valley Police Lt. Joe May said that since the property had been foreclosed and turned over to the legal owners, the Earls will be considered trespassers, and if they try to re-enter the home they will be arrested.
“If an arrest is necessary we will take the appropriate action,” he said.
Pines said he’d confirmed with the District Attorney’s Office that there wouldn’t be an eviction. He explained he’d e-mailed Senior Deputy DA Miles Weiss saying that if he didn’t hear from him by a certain time, that would be a tacit agreement the eviction wasn’t going to happen.
“And I didn’t hear from him,” he said.
Weiss agreed Pines did not hear from the DA’s office.
“There was no response of any kind from the DA’s office and it was only his assumption that there would not be a lockout, and thus his mistaken belief,” Weiss said. “It is commonly known that the District Attorney’s Office is not going to become engaged in directing the Sheriff’s Department or Simi Valley Police Department regarding whether or not to act upon a writ of possession.”
The house is in the 5800 block of Mustang Drive. The Earls bought it in 2001 for $539,000 and refinanced in subsequent years, pulling the equity out and resulting in debt of more than $1 million, according to county records.
Conejo Capital bought the house at a foreclosure sale in January and was set to sell it until the buyers grew nervous and pulled out because of the dispute with the Earls.
The Earls had forced their way back into the home in October.
On Oct. 15, a Ventura County Superior Court judge ordered the family to vacate the property.
Danielle Earl argues Conejo Capital can’t possibly own the home because it bought the property from a string of lenders who she claims created documents out of thin air. She believes people fraudulently assigned themselves rights to her property.
Robo-signing has been making headlines nationwide recently amid evidence that employees and lawyers of major lenders may have filed faulty paperwork by robotically signing off on thousands of defaulted loans without fully reviewing the files.
— Correspondent Mike Harris contributed to this report
The original version of this story had an incorrect date for when the family forced their way back into the home.
