Indiana Batmobile Builder Raided By Northern California Sheriff

More often than not, if you – a client – buy an merchandise, you change your cash, and also you get the merchandise. It’s easy. Generally, when commissioning a customized automobile, for instance, you pay a portion of the full value of the automobile upfront after which make extra funds primarily based on a purchase order settlement that each you, the client, and the builder have signed. Easy, proper? Properly, it’s not so easy when you’re Mark Racop, proprietor of Fiberglass Freaks.

Racop agreed to construct one among his formally licensed 1960s Batmobile replicas for Bay Area real estate agent Sam Anagnostou, and regardless of issues going initially nicely after Anagnostou made his preliminary $170,000 fee in opposition to a complete automobile value of round $210,000, the deal soured quickly after. Based on a report published Friday by ABC7 Bay Area News, the Atherton, CA-based actual property agent missed a $20,000 fee which was agreed upon as a part of the acquisition course of, in line with an announcement by Racop.

Racop claims he made a number of efforts over a number of months to contact Anagnostou concerning the fee. When he obtained no response, he bumped Anagnostou’s automotive to the underside of his nine-vehicle-long construct queue including between 18 and 24 months to his wait. That is the place issues begin to go method off the rails.

As soon as the automotive was moved down the record and Anagnostou was knowledgeable, he “exploded,” in line with Racop, however then proceeded to repay the remaining stability on the automobile. Shortly after this, Anagnostou filed a report together with his native Atherton police division, which the San Mateo County district legal professional denied, opting to not file prison costs. From there, our intrepid actual property agent additionally filed a lawsuit in San Mateo County alleging that Racop and Fiberglass Freaks breached their contract and dedicated fraud. This case was dismissed by a choose who stated the swimsuit belonged in Indiana courts.

Then Anagnostou went full “I want to speak to your manager” and reached out to his Fb pal, San Mateo County Sheriff Carlos Bolano. The realtor allegedly requested the sheriff to intervene, which it seems Bolano did by securing warrants for Racop’s electronic mail communications and freezing his checking account. He then, additionally allegedly, ordered a lieutenant, sergeant and two deputies to fly to Indiana and have an effect on a raid on the Fiberglass Freaks workplaces.

The raid resulted in Bolano’s deputies taking two information of paperwork and hauling Racop right down to his native police station for an hour earlier than letting him go with out arresting him. Later, San Mateo county charged him with two felonies – acquiring cash by false pretenses and diversion of development funds.

Now, this all stinks to me. I need to know the way Bolano (who misplaced his reelection and is getting the boot from workplace in January) was in a position to persuade a choose in Indiana to authorize search warrants and account freezes for Mark Racop’s enterprise when his personal district legal professional had beforehand dismissed Anagnostou’s makes an attempt to press costs. I’ve tried to contact Choose Stephen Kitts of Cass County, who approved the search warrant for the San Mateo County sheriff’s officers, to grasp what compelling proof the San Mateo county sheriff offered that satisfied him to permit the search, however he didn’t instantly return our request for remark.

I additionally tried contacting Sheriff Bolano however was informed he was out of the workplace. Voicemails left with the San Mateo Sheriff’s press info officer have additionally not been returned. Persevering with the theme of being not possible to achieve, Sam Anagnostou hasn’t responded to voicemails asking for remark both, all of which leads me to consider that this entire factor blew up in a method that no one meant, and everybody appears to be circling their wagons.

So, is that this a case of a wealthy, bleached-out boomer getting unnecessarily spicy as a result of he came upon that the foundations of a signed contract utilized to him, an abuse of police energy, or is it a reliable gripe? It’s not possible to say for sure at this level. Nonetheless, the San Mateo County district court docket is about to start the method of discovering out what precisely it was beginning on August 19, when Racop will seem earlier than the court docket for a warrant arraignment.