Stealing Home

Sheriff's Department Takes Family's Home and Contents Using a Fake Eviction 

by Tim King Salem-News.com

Theodore Visner and Kathy Smith are having trouble getting their story out...



Visner-Smith family

(MT. PLEASANT, MI) - U.S. Navy veteran Ted Visner and his wife, Kathy Smith of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, have been living out a nightmare. It started two and a half years ago, when the family fell victim to an apparent real estate scam by a local sheriff's department employee.

The Mt. Pleasant, Michigan home.

Ted Visner says they bought their former home on a land contract, only to learn seven months later, that the seller, Isabella County Sheriff's Dept. employee Shelly Sweet, was not making monthly payments on the house. A bank foreclosed on the property, all unbeknownst to the Visner/Smith family.

Ted Visner, who builds custom homes for a living, said, "Although we were paying Sweet every month on the purchase of the property, she had not been paying the underlying mortgage and the home fell into foreclosure." I asked Visner if he had records of those payments, he said he does, including canceled checks. You won't believe what happened next.

"On a weekend Sweet knew that we would be out of town, she offered the contents of our home to her friends and coworkers at the Isabella County Sheriff’s Department, claiming we had abandoned the home. Many took her up on her free offer deal and took over $55,000 dollars worth of our personal property."
Property Vanishes

$55,000 is a big number, but Visner said Sweet availed all of their personal belongings and private property to anyone who would take it. Visner tells Salem-News the items taken included beds, dressers, appliances, his wife's wedding dress which was hermetically sealed, kids toys, sports equipment, and a whole lot more.

Visner served his country for 6 years, aboard U.S. Navy submarines.

"My kids couldn't play or participate in sports for the next two years. Other items that disappeared included tax records... nothing has been recovered."

The story seems blatantly criminal in nature, with police banding together to help off their property in its entirety. Visner said, "She just put a sign out and let anybody have what they wanted, she didn't remember who was there. In her own deposition she admits to giving our stuff away."

Visner says Sweet told her employer, the sheriff's department that Visner and his wife weren't making payments, while Visner is able to prove via canceled checks to Sweet that they were indeed paying. "It was blatantly untrue," Visner added. "There is no evidence to support what the county did, it all shows what we are saying though."

He says the experience has been extremely hard for his family, adding, "I don't have any criminal background, I served six years in the Navy on submarines, my wife and I have kids, we don't deserve this, nobody in the world deserves this."

Visner, Smith and their kids, returned from their weekend away on Monday September 27, 2010, to discover that they were locked out of their own home. Visner called the law enforcement agency that Sweet worked for.

"We had NOT been evicted nor had we abandoned the property. The woman had convinced friends and coworkers that we had never paid her, and that were trashing the house and had forced her into foreclosure -- none of which were true."

Photos of Ted Visner's custom homes: vizbuilt.com

It would take a day before the family was allowed to go back inside of the home, and that is when Smith and Visner learned that 95% of the home's contents had been stolen.

"A sheriff deputy named 'Steinert' came to our home three times that day and only assisted his coworker while the under-sheriff, sheriff and PA refused to help us after they recognized the totality of the situation," Visner said, adding that the "situation" was 6+ coworkers of Sweet having entered their home and receiving stolen property, which for anyone else in the world is Theft.

Instead, Visner was arrested for "Misuse of 911" on the deputy's third visit. "The county investigated the crime for almost four months and during this time, I moved my family out of Isabella County for safety, I could not move with them because my indefinitely delayed arraignment still loomed over my head."

Visner says after losing the home he shared with his family, and 95% of their belongings to the sheriff's department, that the prosecutor's office ignored their complaints and still refused to investigate "their employees". In his words, "Over two and a half years have passed now with law enforcement officials doing nothing except covering for one another."

Visner says the underlying crime was the conspiracy to deprive his family’s constitutional rights - that is a federal crime during the commission of which, he asserts that he was kidnapped (arrested) by Deputy Steinert on the "bullshit charge" of misusing 911. Violation of Title 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242 is a federal felony crime where the offenders could be sentenced to death if killing or kidnapping occur.

Family photographs provided by Ted Visner

Visner says the following people participated in the crimes against his family.

Isabella County Sheriff Deputy Clinton Steinert
Isabella County Sheriff Department Clerk Shelly Sweet
Isabella County under-sheriff John Tellis
Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski
Isabella County Board of Commissioners (7 or 8)
Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney Larry Burdick (out-going)
Isabella County Prosecuting Attorney Risa Scully (incoming)

"Our story needs to go viral, people need to know that they have to stand up for their rights, when we stop standing for our rights we won't have them anymore." He concluded that statement by adding that you only have rights when people in positions of authority listen.

"The Attorney General is dismissing this serious crime... For my family and I, there is no recourse, at least not yet. The AG prohibits complaints of police misconduct and civil rights being violated. I just wrote a letter to the ACLU and explained this, I haven't heard back from them yet," Visner said.

Salem-News attempted to reach Isabella County Sheriff Leo Mioduszewski, he has not returned our call in regard to the Visner case. An employee of the sheriff's office told Salem-News that the agency does not have a public information officer.

Is it possible to receive an "F minus" as a public safety agency? If so, based on the above information, that is definitely the grade the Isabella County Sheriff's Dept. in Michigan deserves. You can draw your own conclusions, but these cops appear to take law enforcement corruption and government misuse of power to all new levels. Learn more, visit: Visner4Sheriff.com