VANDALISM 5/2/08
KIDS SUSPECTED IN HOME DAMAGE
Police: Adult may be behind the $17,000 worth of destruction
By CARLYN RAY MITCHELL THE GAZETTE
Four middle-schoolers who police say were urged by an adult to vandalize their neighbor’s Pine Creek home could face felony charges for allegedly causing $17,000 worth of damage.
The vandal or vandals broke windows, spray-painted profane words and images on the home’s stucco and driveway, and poured oil all over the concrete in the March 26 incident in the 9900 block of Pinedale Drive.
Police say the arrest is pending of an adult suspected of urging the adolescents to commit the crime and might also have bought the paint and oil.
Homeowner Greg Thomas said the adult in question, whom he declined to name, is a “prominent” local real estate agent with whom his business relationship soured three years ago. He referred to the adult repeatedly as “she.”
“It is really kind of sad actually that she has held this grudge, and she’s got these kids involved who will now have felony convictions against them and she will as well,” Thomas said.
The four children attend Challenger Middle School, police said. Police did not identify the children or the adult.
Thomas’ 13-year-old daughter is also a student at Challenger, but he said she only knows one of the suspects.
Thomas said the adult’s alleged involvement in the incident came as a surprise to him and his family, who for weeks had assumed the vandalism was a prank aimed at their daughter.
Thomas’ relationship with the agent began four years ago when he learned the Navy was transferring him from Pennsylvania to Colorado Springs, he said.
He and the agent exchanged phone calls for a year, and she showed him a few houses. But when it came time for Thomas to sign a broker contract with the woman, he felt uneasy and backed out of the deal.
For the next two weeks, the family received “hateful” voice mails at their home in Pennsylvania from the agent, but they ignored them and never had contact with her again, Thomas said.
For a week after the vandalism incident, the Thomas family said, police were unresponsive to their requests for an investigation.
So neighbors took on the matter, engaging in amateur detective work that led them to wrongly accuse another boy of the act.
“An e-mail was disseminated among some residents of Pine Creek, advising everyone to watch out for this boy because he is involved in gang activity, drug dealing and vandalism,” police said.
Police said the boy had no involvement in the incident.
VANDALISM 5/3/08
REALTOR ARRESTED AFTER HOUSE IS DEFACED
Police: Agent wanted
to get revenge on client who passed on contract
By LANCE BENZEL THE GAZETTE
A real estate agent in Colorado Springs sent four children — two of them family friends — to exact her revenge on a client who passed on a lucrative contract nearly three years ago, police said.
Sandra Haddad, coowner of Colorado New
Home Concepts, is accused of supplying four 13-yearold boys with the vegetable oil and spray paint they used to c a u s e $17,000 in damage to a home in Pine Creek, an upscale subdivision in northwest Colorado Springs.
The March 23 incident targeted Greg and Lenae Thomas, who declined to sign a buyer’s agency contract with Haddad in 2005. They had settled on a home worth $640,000 but reconsidered and went with a different real estate agent because of concerns about Haddad’s terms.
“She was angry she lost the commission,” said Colorado Springs police Sgt. Dale Fox.
According to Greg Thomas, Haddad would have collected $27,000, or 4 percent of the selling price.
Haddad, 49, was arrested Friday on suspicion of contributing to the delinquency of a minor and conspiracy to commit criminal mischief, both felonies. She was released from the county jail after posting a $3,000 bond.
Investigators told Thomas that Haddad took the boys to Wal-Mart to buy their supplies on the night of the vandalism.
Haddad has been practicing real estate for more than 20 years. If convicted, she could face the loss of her license, said Marcia Waters, director of investigations and compliance for the Colorado Division of Real Estate.
Haddad did not return a phone message left on her office voice mail. Her attorneys, Gary Shupp and George Vahsholtz, had not seen the complaint as of Friday afternoon.
“We don’t have enough information to comment,” Shupp said.
Greg Thomas said his family received threatening phone messages from Haddad for a week after they decided to go with a different real estate agent.
They had all but forgotten about her when police informed them of their suspicions in the vandalism case.
“I said, ‘Who?’” Greg Thomas said.
The Thomases were on a skiing trip when police say the boys vandalized the home in the 9900 block of Pinedale Drive — smashing windows and outside lights, staining the driveway with vegetable oil and spraypainting vulgar language and images on the walls and fence. An apparent gang symbol was painted on their garage wall.
The boys were charged as juveniles with felony criminal mischief this week, Fox said. Police do not identify juvenile suspects.
Haddad was known as Auntie Sandy’ to two of them, the sons of family friends, Fox said. He said their parents were shocked by the allegations and cooperated with police after being presented with the evidence.
None of the children received money or favors in exchange for carrying out the vandalism, Fox said. Police think that Haddad drew on a close relationship with the two boys in persuading the four to help, he said.
Thomas, a Navy captain who works at Peterson Air Force Base, said his family was still living in Pennsylvania when they contacted Haddad in 2004 for help finding a home in Colorado Springs.
Their business relationship soured eight months later when Haddad sent them a contract with language that other real estate agents called into question, he said.
“Had the deal gone wrong, she could have sued me for a house I never bought,” he said. “I didn’t dump this Realtor to go and get a better deal. I didn’t use her because I didn’t trust her.”
Thomas and his wife got a restraining order against Haddad on Wednesday, saying they are afraid of what she is capable of given the seriousness of the allegations.
“If she is capable of doing this to our house three years later, then what else is she capable of?” he said.
“I felt much better about this when I thought it was just kids.”
***It's not my job to sell a house to my buyer, it's my job to find the right house for my buyer.***
