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WFLA - U.S. Soldier Can't Get Felon Out of His Florida House


Dan T.

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NEW PORT RICHEY, FL (WFLA) -

When soldier Michael Sharkey was deployed to Afghanistan two years ago, he asked a friend to watch over his New Port Richey house. Sharkey and his wife are now living in Hawaii where he is currently stationed. They plan to move back into their New Port Richey home someday. But, right now they are fighting to get their house back.

 

They say strangers broke in, changed the locks, moved in and they refuse to leave.

"I want the people out," said Sharkey. "They're criminals living in my house." Sharkey was shocked to find out that the Pasco County Sheriff's Office says it can't do anything about the squatters.

Here's where it gets complicated.

 

When 8 On Your Side went to check out the situation, we found a man named Julio Ortiz and his girlfriend, Fatima Cardoso, living in the soldier's home. They offered no apologies. They say they know Sharkey doesn't want them there, but they're not leaving until they're ready.

 

"I don't want problems," Ortiz said. "We're not doing anything wrong."

 

Ortiz says he has permission to be in the house, just not from Sharkey, the home's owner. Ortiz says he doesn't need a lease because he has a "contract." He described this contract as a verbal agreement with a friend of the soldier to fix up the home, in exchange for living there rent free.

Ortiz said the plan was to fix up the house and then eventually work out a deal with Sharkey to rent the place.

 

But, Sharkey says this is all lies. He says he's never seen or talked to Ortiz.

 

Lisa Pettus, who is Sharkey's friend, told 8 On Your Side there was no agreement with Ortiz . She says she met Ortiz through a friend and he agreed to help her fix up Sharkey's home while he was away in the military. She says she supplied all of the supplies and Ortiz and his girlfriend were never left alone in the house.

 

About two months after the work was done, though, Pettus says she drove by to check on the house and found the pair living there. "I couldn't believe it," Pettus said. "And now they're using my name to justify this. It's wrong."

 

Getting Ortiz and his girlfriend out of the house is proving to be difficult. Sharkey's wife flew home from Hawaii on News Year's Eve and went to the house with a sheriff's deputy. But when the deputy heard Ortiz' story about the verbal agreement, he said it was civil matter.

That means Sharkey will have to go through the court system and file for a formal eviction.

Pasco County Sheriff's Office Spokesperson Ken Doll says Ortiz and Cardoso have established residency in the home, so it would take a court order to evict them now. "I don't think I should have to pay hundreds of dollars and go through that aggravation," Sharkey said. "I work hard, long hours, and these people never had permission to live in my home. They should be thrown out."

Sharkey says he's also worried that when he files for eviction, his unwanted house guests will damage his home.

 

Adding to his concern is their criminal backgrounds.

 

Ortiz spent a combined twelve years in prison in New Jersey for robbery, car jacking and selling drugs on school property. He was released in 2011. Fatima Cardorso spent more than two years in prison on drug charges and was released in 2006.

 

http://www.wfla.com/story/25297909/soldier-says-strangers-broke-into-his-home-and-wont-leave

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Wait until the occupants leave the house for an errand.  Go in, change the locks, install alarms, put all the possession in a nice padlocked box in the driveway.  Let them sue you for wrongful eviction and countersue for wrongful possession and eviction.  Either way, you just removed them without worrying about potential damage to property.

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If it's all based on a verbal agreement between Ortiz and Sharkey's friend, why not just get the friend to publicly revoke the verbal contract?

If its all on the verbal agreement between Ortiz and Sharkey's friend, ask Sharkey's friend to produce evidence she had power of attorney authorizing her to sublet his property. Absent that, the contract is illegal.

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If it's all based on a verbal agreement between Ortiz and Sharkey's friend, why not just get the friend to publicly revoke the verbal contract?

 

It seems like the crooks are alleging that there was a contract (fix house for rent free occupancy) and that they already performed their end of the bargain, thus if the contract was legally binding, then the friend couldn't revoke the contract after one party already performed.  Of course, the contract claim would likely be thrown out in a lawsuit, but what they are trying to do is allege just enough to avoid being arrested as a trespasser and make it a civil matter.  

 

Sharkey could win a civil case, win damages, and then pursue criminal charges (and probably succeed on all three accounts without too much problem), but Ortiz would get what he wanted to begin with, squatting as long as he could on the property rent free.   With serious jail time (frankly, any jail time) being unlikely, Ortiz will probably just laugh at the civil judgment and move on to his next scheme.  Sharkey could devote a lot of time and effort to make Ortiz pay every last cent, but it probably won't be worth his time (or the money to hire an attorney).  I would love to see an aggressive prosecutor be creative and go after Ortiz hard for this and discourage any similar behavior in the future.    

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This sucks for this poor soldier, but it's not that surprising that you need a court order to evict someone who claims they have a right to be where they are.   Just telling the Sheriff to kick someone out without letting the other side at least give their side is not how things work.

 

So go get the court order.  It sucks, but it's really not that difficult.  Someone will probably do it pro bono for you.    

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Are you volunteering?

 

I'm not a member of the Florida Bar and and I'm not allowed to represent anyone, but if I were down there and in private practice I would jump all over this right away.  It would take a couple hours and would be great publicity.

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Something just seems off about this.  I would like to have been in the room with the Deputy when he determined it was civil.  From just reading the media report it doesn't make sense, so I am going to assume they are not reporting everything.

 

Actually, it doesn't surprise me a whole lot. 

 

As I understand it, there's a whole bunch of legal precedent that says you really can't remove somebody from "their" home, pretty much without a court order.  (And yes, it's common for such things to take months.) 

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It's Florida.

Walk in and shoot them.

Actually, maybe I've watched too many episodes of The Equalizer, or some such, but I do have this mental image.

I see somebody walking up to our "tenant", and speaking to him.

you see, Mr. Tennant, the house you're stealing? It belongs to Michael Sharkey. Now, that name might not mean much, to you. Doesn't mean much to me, either. But, you see, Mr Sharkey is a veteran. And so am I. So that kinda makes us friends. (Even though I've never met the guy. Never even heard of him, till I read the newspaper stories.)

So, you see, what that means is that, say, if I were to kill you, the odds of the cops figuring out that I did it? Really slim.

(And, frankly, if they do figure out it was me? The odds of a jury that doesn;t have at least two veterans on it? Really slim. And it only takes one, for me to walk.)

(In fact, you know how I mentioned that Mr Sharkey is kinda a buddy of mine, cause he's a veteran? Well, I'll bet you that half the cops in this county are veterans, too.)

So, why don't you think about it for a while, and then go steal a house from somebody who isn't a veteran, eh? Oh, and not trashing Mr Sharkey's place might be a good idea, too.

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It's Florida.

Walk in and shoot them.

 

 

~Bang

 

 

It's Florida.   

 

track them down now and shoot them anyway, even though they already left.  Maybe they are making noise in the movie theatre.

 

~bang bang  

Something just seems off about this.  I would like to have been in the room with the Deputy when he determined it was civil.  From just reading the media report it doesn't make sense, so I am going to assume they are not reporting everything.

 

I think the Deputy is correct.  If a guy tells you he has a legal claim to be in the house, it is a civil matter even if you don't think he has much of a chance to win his case.   Deputys are not equipped or authorized to decide whether the guy's legal claim is baloney - that's what judges do.    

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