Forcelosed Homeowner Sentenced For Stripping Fixtures From House Before Sheriff's Sale

In Mercer County, Pennsylvania, The Herald reports on the antics of a local homeowner who was of the criminally mistaken belief that you can destroy your own home before a foreclosure sale inspite of the fact that, once pledged as collateral for a mortgage loan, the mortgage lender legally owns a security interest in the home:

• [Scott A.] McCuskey, 40, of [...] Sharpsville, was sentenced Tuesday for stripping his $1.2 million Jefferson Township home down to its bones before it went up for sheriff’s sale in 2006. Police said McCuskey, a former mortgage broker, admitted to taking virtually everything that wasn’t nailed down, and a few things that were, including: lights, window cranks, baseboards, ceiling and window trim, cabinets, countertops, vent covers, closet shelving, doors, tub and shower fixtures, toilets, sinks, vanities, shower doors, carpeting, locks and handles for outside doors, a Jacuzzi, benches, garage doors, side doors, garage windows and outside wall fixtures.

• “This was stripping a house. This was theft. And you are a common criminal,” [Judge Thomas R.] Dobson told McCuskey. Dobson gave McCuskey 3 to 15 months in county jail and ordered him to pay more than $174,000 in restitution to Sovereign Bank, Reading, Pa., and insurers. McCuskey was found guilty of defrauding creditors and fraud in insolvency after a trial in April.

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• McCuskey argued that he did not know it was against the law to strip his home. He said he thought the home – which was collateral in a loan he defaulted on in October 2004 – was his until the sheriff’s sale.

For more, see Jail time ordered in house stripping; mortgage broker labeled ‘criminal'.

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