Eviction service seeks policy changes

St. Louis Daily Record & St. Louis Countian, Jun 6, 2008 by Donna Walter

The St. Louis County Sheriff's Office is diverting business from a moving company in retaliation for the owner's help uncovering a bribery scandal that led to the conviction of four deputies, a federal lawsuit alleges.

Landlords Moving Service, owned by Laura L. Nelson-Smith, specializes in removing the personal property of tenants that have been evicted from their homes. Represented by Clayton attorney Joshua Schindler, Smith alleges certain employees in the sheriff's office are engaged in a campaign to shift busi-ness from her company to Independent Eviction Agency, which is owned by one of her former employees.

"When someone cooperates and helps to clean up county government, that should be applauded and heralded as a good act," Schindler said. "But on the contrary it appears the sheriff's office is trying to punish this kind of cooperation."

Smith said she hopes the lawsuit will bring about policy changes in the sheriff's office. The lawsuit was filed May 28 in the St. Louis-based federal court.

The motive behind the county officials' alleged actions is to get her back for working undercover for the FBI's investigation into former deputies Curley Hines, Marcus Lipe, Richard Robinson and David Rodriguez, Smith alleges. Smith named these deputies, former Sheriff Gene Overall, Sheriff James D. Buckles, employee Laurie Main and St. Louis County as defendants in the suit.

Buckles denied the allegations. "We have not diverted any business away from anybody for any reason, period," he said. The sheriff declined to comment further because he had not yet seen the lawsuit. County Counselor Patricia Redington said the county has not been served and also declined to comment.

According to Smith, corruption in the sheriff's office goes back to 1971. At that time, Greg Smith, then 21, was just starting the company. The sheriff told the young man he had to pay $10 for each eviction, or the office wouldn't cooperate with him, Laura Smith said in a telephone interview. The fee doubled since then, she said.

Landlords Moving fired James Siebels, who went on to establish his own company in 2003. According to Smith, Siebels paid the deputies more per eviction than Smith did in an attempt to get the jobs from Landlords Moving. Siebels said Thursday he never paid any money to the sheriff's deputies.

At that point, Smith said, she decided to stop the payments. Greg Smith thought her decision would be the end of the company, she said. Then, upon her lawyer's advice, Smith went to the FBI and informed investigators of the payments the deputies demanded, she said.

Smith said she agreed to work undercover with the FBI and wore a wire for conversations with the four deputies that handled evictions. U.S. Attorney Ca-therine Hanaway indicted Hines, Lipe, Robinson and Rodriguez. Lipe and Rodriguez pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to three years' probation and a $10,000 fine. Two separate juries found Hines and Robinson guilty. They were each sentenced to 33 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $10,000 in restitution.

Smith said the deputies stopped cooperating with her when she stopped paying them. The sheriff's office imposed a strict schedule for Landlords Moving and only allowed the movers to work with certain deputies on certain days, she said. For example, the company would be scheduled to work with one deputy every Monday in one part of the county, another deputy every Tuesday in another part of the county and so on. After Smith and some lawyers who file eviction papers complained that the schedule was inefficient and unfair, three other movers were added to the schedule, she said.

Smith also complained that the schedule prevents her from being able to fill her cancellations with evictions in another part of the county.

Despite a note stamped at the top of the eviction papers telling the sheriff's office to call Smith to make the arrangements, the sheriff's scheduling coordi-nator talks to the landlord directly, Smith said. That means Smith is out of the loop and won't know where the movers are supposed to go until the afternoon before the scheduled evictions, she said.

Sometimes the office waits so long to process Smith's papers that the papers, which are good for 30 days, might expire before Landlords Moving is scheduled to work in that particular part of town again, she said. That's when the deputies suggest that the landlords use another mover, Smith said.

Now some attorneys who file for evictions are telling Smith they wish she'd never gone to the FBI, she said.

One lawyer, who asked not to be identified because he continues to work with the sheriff's office, said the delays make the eviction process "very, very cumbersome." It doesn't have to be that way, he said. "I think the problem is the sheriff's office doesn't want to do put-outs. I also think they don't like the Smiths," he said.