Suit: Taser-Toting HOA Guards Mistakenly Storm Foreclosed Condo, Hold Unwitting Residents Against Their Will For Two Hours, Then Apologize For Error

In Sacramento, California, Courthouse News Service reports:

• Nine condo residents claim Taser-toting private security guards burst into their homes at 3 a.m. and assaulted them, forcing them into the street in their underwear, in a foreclosure the residents had never been informed of.

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• After a default judgment was issued, "in the wee hours of April 30, 2011, defendants came onto plaintiffs' residence, uninvited, at approximately between 3 a.m. and 3:30 a.m., performing a military style raid of plaintiffs' residence," according to the complaint.

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• Saxon says he explained to a security officer that he had been paying all of the utilities and the security officer said that, "'between you, me and the lamppost, the homeowners' association is over-zealous." "The security officers apologized and said it was all a misunderstanding, and then left," the complaint states.
  
  
• "They occupied and controlled the premises approximately two hours, holding plaintiffs against their will and preventing them by the use of force and/or the threat to use force for freely moving and entering their residence. ...
  
  
• "During this approximate two-hour ordeal, the armed men threatened arrest and incarceration, menaced the plaintiffs with weapons, engaged in intimidation, positioning themselves immediately in front of and/or behind the plaintiffs, glaring at them menacingly and invading the plaintiffs' space."
  
  
• When the plaintiffs returned to their homes, they saw that their personal belongings had been sifted through, and one man discovered that "naked photos of his girlfriend and himself ... had been taken."
  
  
• The plaintiffs seek damages for trespass, extortion, assault and battery, false imprisonment, invasion of privacy, conversion and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

For more, see The Foreclosure From Hell.

See also, CBS Local 13: Condo Tenants Suing Paladin Security Over ‘Raid’.

For the lawsuit, see Saxon, et al. v. Paladin Protection Services, Inc., Jasmine Homeowners Association, et al.