Arrest Warrants Issued For Suspects Accused Of "Hijacking" Vacant, Foreclosed Home In Gated Community

In Sacramento, California, News10 reports:

• The neighbors were suspicious but the tenants showed police a lease to prove they belonged. But now, the case of mystery tenants moving into a vacant upscale Natomas house in the Westlake subdivision last week has brought arrest warrants for those tenants and their real estate broker.(1)

• After a one-week investigation, Sacramento Police Department detectives confirmed the couple who moved into 3700 Clubside Lane in the exclusive neighborhood had no legal right to be there. The suspicion is that with help from a friend who's a real estate broker, the couple moved in and may have planned to get money from the legal owner in return for moving out later without going through the long eviction process, according to police Sgt. Norm Leong.

For more, see Natomas Rental Fraud Brings Arrest Warrants.

(1) Arrest warrants have been issued for real estate broker Phillis Powers, 52. Also sought under the warrants are Carver Barney, 57, and his wife Sandra Barney, 54, the couple who had moved into the house. A fourth suspect is Dennis Eugene, 49, who Powers or the tenants allegedly hired to clean up the house. The warrants are all for a charge of criminal trespass. The legal owner of the house is Aurora Loan Services of Colorado which purchased the house at auction on Jan. 29. PhonyLandlordScamZeta