> Sguros filed a complaint against the real estate company in February, saying in filings that he discovered West in the home while he was on duty and detailing how he subsequently began to clean, secure and invest in the property. However, he never established in his records that he came to be involved in the home through a purchase, lease, probate appointment, deed or relationship with West’s heirs, the arrest affidavit said.
Wow, cops certainly know how to produce a confession.
I've long thought that pure desire/drive is much more important than intelligence in just about everything, including things that stereotypically require intelligence like programming, math etc.
By "everything" I'm presuming you mean the trivial little games that humans these days are preoccupied with. You can play those games if you like, but they won't save you. Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero.
For your way of scoring maybe. If I can see and do some cool stuff along the way and maybe even love, then my final score will be non-zero, according to my scoring system.
> Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero
This system of morality is cute when we compare a rich man and a pauper. It falls on its face when we compare a violent heathen and someone who tried to live well. It's lazy nihilism by another name, an absolution of moral agency, albeit with compelling dressing.
You're just a dumb ape, you play dumb ape games, you cannot get outside of your nature, and it's in your nature to tell yourself fairy tales about how special you think you are, I get it. That's why I'm a nihilist, because I can see that different peoples all have different stories about why they are absolutely convinced they are god's special chosen people.
Our "moral agency" is no different from that of a dog's, it's just the evolved game theory outcome of many millions of years living as social animals. It's an intuition about when to cooperate and when to compete.
As social animals we have devolved into violent heathens regularly throughout history if you think those violent tendencies isn't hardwired into your own DNA you're kidding yourself. When a technology is invented all of it's negative externalities and misuses are invented as well, and if said technology is used for violent heathenry, it's inventors are complicit.
And yes, I'm lazy, that's a win condition, why wouldn't I be?
It looks like he was working toward an adverse possession claim. In Florida it's 7 years of "open and notorious" possession, as well as paying all property taxes (which it sounds like he did), filing a letter with the appraiser's office (which it sounds like he did), and improving the property (which he did). His adverse possession claim was interrupted 4 years into the 7 year clock, and then he tried to file an "unjust enrichment" claim to get the money he spent on the property back.
His big mistake was forging the signature and impersonating the decedent. If he'd just signed under his own name and hoped nobody noticed, no felonies would've been committed and he would have a case to get back the $200K in the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit.
It's 20 years without color of deed, meaning he would have needed a legitimate deed that conflicted with the deceased mans deed for the 7 year time line.
This is different. I'm not commenting on morality. I'm saying they were cunning enough to pull this off–and get away with it for many years–but not smart enough to realize that pressing this legal claim would cause him to lose everything.
$214k is more than I have spent on the home I "own" (have a mortgage on) even adding in my downpayment over the last 7 years. He could have bought a home for what he claims to have spent.
Your original comment to which I was replying when you edited your comment:
> You have to count the total amount you will pay on the mortgage.
Yes. That's what I was counting, I have spent less than $214k on my house, repairs and mortgage.
Your comment after that was edited:
> A house price is a house price, you can't say it's only 20%.
What are you talking about? The question is could he have afforded a house for $214k, and the answer is yes. Houses in that area don't cost a minimum of $1 million, even the house he attempted to steal wasn't worth that much.
cowlevel is saying that they know what a down payment is but also thinks that you can’t buy a house that costs more than the amount of money you have in the bank
If that's what they believe they're a strange person. Very few people buy houses in the US with cash in the bank equal to the home price. They buy them with mortgages. And someone who can spend $214k on home repair work over 4 years could have afforded a pretty decent house with that same cash and a mortgage.
When a fraudulently obtained house costs $214k you may as well spend the $400k average house price in that city and avoid jail forever. Staying out of jail and continuing to work as a cop is easily worth more than $200k.
A real estate website tells me the average in that city is $400K. But it does seem pretty dumb to spend that amount of money on improvements when you know damn well your ownership is fraudulent and may come back to bite you.
Assuming the identity of a dead person was (is still?) a common form of fraud. People (usually relatives) could collect pension and social security payments sometimes for years before being discovered (if they ever were).
It's crazy that we have such a disjointed system that someone can die and the Federal government is unable to timely discover and process death records.
Who is to say he wasn’t in fear for his life when he stole the house? Maybe the house committed a crime and he was detaining it. Civilians just don’t know the challenges faced by our boys in blue
> Sguros filed a complaint against the real estate company in February, saying in filings that he discovered West in the home while he was on duty and detailing how he subsequently began to clean, secure and invest in the property. However, he never established in his records that he came to be involved in the home through a purchase, lease, probate appointment, deed or relationship with West’s heirs, the arrest affidavit said.
Wow, cops certainly know how to produce a confession.
Cop stole house from dead man. Then cop sued company that rightfully bought house from dead man's heirs?
It’s always surprising how craftiness and intelligence, which one would expect to be joined at the hip, can exist almost independently to each other.
I cannot help but wonder, "What did the cop do with the body?"
The story has a video showing paramedics or someone taking the body away on a stretcher.
I take it you stopped reading before the fifth paragraph.
In this case, more like sometime someone can buy their lies so much even they start to believe them?
I've long thought that pure desire/drive is much more important than intelligence in just about everything, including things that stereotypically require intelligence like programming, math etc.
By "everything" I'm presuming you mean the trivial little games that humans these days are preoccupied with. You can play those games if you like, but they won't save you. Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero.
For your way of scoring maybe. If I can see and do some cool stuff along the way and maybe even love, then my final score will be non-zero, according to my scoring system.
> Everybody dies in the end no matter how smart or motivated they are. The final score is always zero
This system of morality is cute when we compare a rich man and a pauper. It falls on its face when we compare a violent heathen and someone who tried to live well. It's lazy nihilism by another name, an absolution of moral agency, albeit with compelling dressing.
You're just a dumb ape, you play dumb ape games, you cannot get outside of your nature, and it's in your nature to tell yourself fairy tales about how special you think you are, I get it. That's why I'm a nihilist, because I can see that different peoples all have different stories about why they are absolutely convinced they are god's special chosen people.
Our "moral agency" is no different from that of a dog's, it's just the evolved game theory outcome of many millions of years living as social animals. It's an intuition about when to cooperate and when to compete.
As social animals we have devolved into violent heathens regularly throughout history if you think those violent tendencies isn't hardwired into your own DNA you're kidding yourself. When a technology is invented all of it's negative externalities and misuses are invented as well, and if said technology is used for violent heathenry, it's inventors are complicit.
And yes, I'm lazy, that's a win condition, why wouldn't I be?
You can have anything you want, so long as you want it more than everything else.
It looks like he was working toward an adverse possession claim. In Florida it's 7 years of "open and notorious" possession, as well as paying all property taxes (which it sounds like he did), filing a letter with the appraiser's office (which it sounds like he did), and improving the property (which he did). His adverse possession claim was interrupted 4 years into the 7 year clock, and then he tried to file an "unjust enrichment" claim to get the money he spent on the property back.
His big mistake was forging the signature and impersonating the decedent. If he'd just signed under his own name and hoped nobody noticed, no felonies would've been committed and he would have a case to get back the $200K in the "unjust enrichment" lawsuit.
Is seven years a common timeline for adverse possession to the point that title conveys without compensation?
It's 20 years without color of deed, meaning he would have needed a legitimate deed that conflicted with the deceased mans deed for the 7 year time line.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/low%20cunning
This is different. I'm not commenting on morality. I'm saying they were cunning enough to pull this off–and get away with it for many years–but not smart enough to realize that pressing this legal claim would cause him to lose everything.
> Sguros [the cop] claimed he spent at least $214,000 of his own money on the home.
If he spent so much, why not just buy his own house? The house in the article is nothing special to look at.
does a house cost below $214,000 now? I haven't heard the news that the market crashed.
$214k is more than I have spent on the home I "own" (have a mortgage on) even adding in my downpayment over the last 7 years. He could have bought a home for what he claims to have spent.
A house price is a house price, you can't say it's only 20%.
Your original comment to which I was replying when you edited your comment:
> You have to count the total amount you will pay on the mortgage.
Yes. That's what I was counting, I have spent less than $214k on my house, repairs and mortgage.
Your comment after that was edited:
> A house price is a house price, you can't say it's only 20%.
What are you talking about? The question is could he have afforded a house for $214k, and the answer is yes. Houses in that area don't cost a minimum of $1 million, even the house he attempted to steal wasn't worth that much.
A house price of $214k is not the same as a down payment of $214k
cowlevel is saying that they know what a down payment is but also thinks that you can’t buy a house that costs more than the amount of money you have in the bank
If that's what they believe they're a strange person. Very few people buy houses in the US with cash in the bank equal to the home price. They buy them with mortgages. And someone who can spend $214k on home repair work over 4 years could have afforded a pretty decent house with that same cash and a mortgage.
When a fraudulently obtained house costs $214k you may as well spend the $400k average house price in that city and avoid jail forever. Staying out of jail and continuing to work as a cop is easily worth more than $200k.
A real estate website tells me the average in that city is $400K. But it does seem pretty dumb to spend that amount of money on improvements when you know damn well your ownership is fraudulent and may come back to bite you.
It looks like he might have been going for turbo squatter's rights [1].
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50215874
Was Flock involved somehow?
That's one way to get a home.
This sounds bonkers, but there was a kernel of legal strategy here - adverse possession, basically a statute of limitations on getting your land back.
Assuming the identity of a dead person was (is still?) a common form of fraud. People (usually relatives) could collect pension and social security payments sometimes for years before being discovered (if they ever were).
It's crazy that we have such a disjointed system that someone can die and the Federal government is unable to timely discover and process death records.
That he is being prosecuted for this is a sad example of why officers need stronger qualified immunity for snap decisions made in the line of duty
You forgot the /s
I can't tell if this is satire or not, but I'm suspecting that it is
Who is to say he wasn’t in fear for his life when he stole the house? Maybe the house committed a crime and he was detaining it. Civilians just don’t know the challenges faced by our boys in blue
To be fair, he likely wasn't trained not to impersonate a dead man and steal his house
Our law enforcement heroes are trained to tactically “take shelter” but when one does so strategically it is branded a “crime”
The most surprising part of this story is that a police officer got arrested and charged with a felony.
Happens like every week. Maybe you just don't read news outside HN.
Which news outlet would you recommend? Weekly updates about cops getting charged with felonies would be interesting.