06/27/01: Idaho Standoff Family

[Freakapotimus]

Wednesday June 27 09:13 AM EDT

Idaho Standoff Family Lived on Borrowed Land
By Dean Schabner ABCNEWS.com

County Says Idaho Standoff Family Could Have Kept Home by Signing

If prosecutors and JoAnn McGuckin's defense attorneys can work out a deal that would allow the Idaho woman to be reunited with her family, they won't be going back to live on the 40-acre lakefront property that was the scene of a five-day standoff between six children, a pack of dogs and police last month.

That land was sold 10 months ago.

Current and former county officials say it didn't have to be that way, though they disagree on who is more to blame, the county or JoAnn McGuckin and her husband Michael, who died last month.

JoAnn McGuckin is due in Bonner County Court today for a hearing on the felony charge of causing injury to a child, and her children are also scheduled for a hearing to decide who will have custody of them.

Bonner County prosecuting attorney Phil Robinson and Bryce Powell, the court-appointed lawyer representing McGuckin, both said they hoped to work out a deal to allow the 42-year-old woman to avoid charges and possibly regain supervised custody of her kids before the court appearances. But it seems those efforts failed.

McGuckin has been in jail since May 29, when she was lured from her home by county officials with the promise of money for food and then was arrested. Though law enforcement authorities said her children were starving, when the youngsters finally allowed police to take them into custody, health-care workers said they were not in a life-threatening condition.

The 40-acre plot the McGuckins lived on, which sits on Lake Pend Oreille between Sagle and Sandpoint, was sold at auction by the county in September 2000 to a New Jersey couple for $53,000, according to country treasurer Shannon Syth.

Michael McGuckin, who died on May 12 after suffering for years from multiple sclerosis, quit deeded the land to an Oregon man named James Stewart in 1996 after the family first started to fall behind in their taxes.

Some payments were made after the name on the property changed, but by May 1999 the bill was about $5,000, and the county tax deeded the property, Syth said. According to current and former county officials, the McGuckins had refused to take advantage of offers of help that could have allowed them to keep the land.

When to Bend the Law

The McGuckins could have had the tax debt forgiven if they filled out an indigent request, but the family refused repeated efforts from county officials and from some of their neighbors to get them to fill out the form, according to commissioner Tom Suttmeier.

"They wouldn't accept assistance from anyone," he said. "I think what you're dealing with here is just an extreme case of paranoia. There's just a resident distrust of government in any form."

Former commissioner Bud Mueller, who served on the board of commissioners when the property was tax deeded, said the county could have done more for the family. He said the commissioners could have forgiven the debt even without the form.

"We used to do it all the time for families that were in a bad way," Mueller said. "I said, 'We're going to make them homeless and it's going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars by the time we're through with it.'

"They told me, 'We have to obey the law.' Well, no we don't. We're commissioners," he said.

A Quick Sale

Though the McGuckins were living on someone else's land for the last 10 months, Suttmeier said the county had no particular interest in forcing them off — and in fact once the land was sold to a private owner, had even less interest in putting them out of the house.

"The county would in all probability have done nothing to move them, and as far as I know did nothing to move them," he said. "It's not in the county's interest to make people homeless."

He said he did not know whether the New Jersey couple did anything to try to get them off. There was no answer to repeated calls to the couple's home by ABCNEWS.com.

Mueller said part of his argument to let the McGuckins keep the land was that there were a lot of properties on the county books that had gone unsold and the county didn't need any more.

"We've got one that's been there since 1946 and hasn't been sold. We have a whole book full of them," he said.

With the McGuckin property, apparently, there was no need for concern.

Real estate agents in the area say the market in Sandpoint is strong, both with people seeking vacation homes for winter skiing and summers on the lake, and people looking to move to an area rich in natural beauty and low in crime.

With five-acre rural zoning, the property could be cut into as many as eight lots.

"I haven't appraised it, but probably one of the reasons it went so quick was that is was a good deal," said Claudia Crosthwaite of Cindy Derr-Janek Co. "It could have been split and probably will be split."

There are still 1½ acres in the McGuckins' name, but there is no structure on the land. Suttmeier said that he will push for changes to state law that would allow people in the McGuckins' situation to get something back from a tax auction.

Current law requires that once the tax debt is met, any principal left over from the sale must be distributed to all the taxing districts that serve the property, such as the fire department and the school district. He said he would rather see the money go back to the property title holders.

"Something like $45,000 would have gone back to them," he said. "That would have been enough to put up a double-width mobile home on that 1½ acres, and they wouldn't be on the street.

"We're going to change it," he said.

[reddeadrevolver]

At 6/27/01 09:32 AM, Freakapotimus wrote: Wednesday June 27 09:13 AM EDT

Idaho Standoff Family Lived on Borrowed Land
By Dean Schabner ABCNEWS.com

County Says Idaho Standoff Family Could Have Kept Home by Signing

If prosecutors and JoAnn McGuckin's defense attorneys can work out a deal that would allow the Idaho woman to be reunited with her family, they won't be going back to live on the 40-acre lakefront property that was the scene of a five-day standoff between six children, a pack of dogs and police last month.

That land was sold 10 months ago.

Current and former county officials say it didn't have to be that way, though they disagree on who is more to blame, the county or JoAnn McGuckin and her husband Michael, who died last month.

JoAnn McGuckin is due in Bonner County Court today for a hearing on the felony charge of causing injury to a child, and her children are also scheduled for a hearing to decide who will have custody of them.

Bonner County prosecuting attorney Phil Robinson and Bryce Powell, the court-appointed lawyer representing McGuckin, both said they hoped to work out a deal to allow the 42-year-old woman to avoid charges and possibly regain supervised custody of her kids before the court appearances. But it seems those efforts failed.

McGuckin has been in jail since May 29, when she was lured from her home by county officials with the promise of money for food and then was arrested. Though law enforcement authorities said her children were starving, when the youngsters finally allowed police to take them into custody, health-care workers said they were not in a life-threatening condition.

The 40-acre plot the McGuckins lived on, which sits on Lake Pend Oreille between Sagle and Sandpoint, was sold at auction by the county in September 2000 to a New Jersey couple for $53,000, according to country treasurer Shannon Syth.

Michael McGuckin, who died on May 12 after suffering for years from multiple sclerosis, quit deeded the land to an Oregon man named James Stewart in 1996 after the family first started to fall behind in their taxes.

Some payments were made after the name on the property changed, but by May 1999 the bill was about $5,000, and the county tax deeded the property, Syth said. According to current and former county officials, the McGuckins had refused to take advantage of offers of help that could have allowed them to keep the land.

When to Bend the Law

The McGuckins could have had the tax debt forgiven if they filled out an indigent request, but the family refused repeated efforts from county officials and from some of their neighbors to get them to fill out the form, according to commissioner Tom Suttmeier.

"They wouldn't accept assistance from anyone," he said. "I think what you're dealing with here is just an extreme case of paranoia. There's just a resident distrust of government in any form."

Former commissioner Bud Mueller, who served on the board of commissioners when the property was tax deeded, said the county could have done more for the family. He said the commissioners could have forgiven the debt even without the form.

"We used to do it all the time for families that were in a bad way," Mueller said. "I said, 'We're going to make them homeless and it's going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars by the time we're through with it.'

"They told me, 'We have to obey the law.' Well, no we don't. We're commissioners," he said.

A Quick Sale

Though the McGuckins were living on someone else's land for the last 10 months, Suttmeier said the county had no particular interest in forcing them off — and in fact once the land was sold to a private owner, had even less interest in putting them out of the house.

"The county would in all probability have done nothing to move them, and as far as I know did nothing to move them," he said. "It's not in the county's interest to make people homeless."

He said he did not know whether the New Jersey couple did anything to try to get them off. There was no answer to repeated calls to the couple's home by ABCNEWS.com.

Mueller said part of his argument to let the McGuckins keep the land was that there were a lot of properties on the county books that had gone unsold and the county didn't need any more.

"We've got one that's been there since 1946 and hasn't been sold. We have a whole book full of them," he said.

With the McGuckin property, apparently, there was no need for concern.

Real estate agents in the area say the market in Sandpoint is strong, both with people seeking vacation homes for winter skiing and summers on the lake, and people looking to move to an area rich in natural beauty and low in crime.

With five-acre rural zoning, the property could be cut into as many as eight lots.

"I haven't appraised it, but probably one of the reasons it went so quick was that is was a good deal," said Claudia Crosthwaite of Cindy Derr-Janek Co. "It could have been split and probably will be split."

There are still 1½ acres in the McGuckins' name, but there is no structure on the land. Suttmeier said that he will push for changes to state law that would allow people in the McGuckins' situation to get something back from a tax auction.

Current law requires that once the tax debt is met, any principal left over from the sale must be distributed to all the taxing districts that serve the property, such as the fire department and the school district. He said he would rather see the money go back to the property title holders.

"Something like $45,000 would have gone back to them," he said. "That would have been enough to put up a double-width mobile home on that 1½ acres, and they wouldn't be on the street.

"We're going to change it," he said.

I say it's the woman's own fault for losing the land and her children. Several attempts were made to aid and assist this women and her family, yet she still refused. Its a real shame.

[Freakapotimus]

Tuesday July 10 09:26 AM EDT

Standoff Kids' Custody in Limbo
By ABCNEWS.com

An Idaho judge says she will hear arguments Friday on whether six children involved in a standoff with police last month should be returned to their mother.

The Idaho woman whose six children held off authorities in a five-day standoff after her arrest, drank alcohol excessively to self-medicate an undisclosed illness, her lawyer said today.

JoAnn McGuckin was in court Monday to begin the battle to regain custody of her children. Bonner County Magistrate Judge Debra Heise ruled that the children are covered by the state's child protection act and set a custody hearing for Friday.

Bonner County Prosecutor Phil Robinson said the children could remain wards of the state for up to a year, or they could be placed under the supervised care of their mother. Officials say McGuckin neglected the children and endangered them by letting them live in unsanitary conditions.

According to the attorney who represents the court-appointed special advocate (CASA) for the children, the goal is to find a way to get the family back together.

"CASA is keeping an open mind for what would accomplish these goals, to reunify the family and keep the children in a safe environment," CASA attorney Brent Featherston told the Spokane Spokesman Review. "The goal is to keep that environment stable and get a plan in place as quickly as we can. That will happen on Friday."

The hearing in Bonner County Courthouse was originally scheduled for June 29, but McGuckin asked for the delay so she could undergo physical and psychiatric exams.

Bryce Powell, McGuckin's lawyer, admitted Monday that his client has had a problem with alcohol, but said her drinking could be considered "self-medication" for an illness that was diagnosed in a recent medical examination.

"JoAnn drinks alcohol," Powell said on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America. "One thing we've recently found is that JoAnn is physically ill. She has some health problems of her own and perhaps she used alcohol for self-medication. That's something that's been done for hundreds of years."

But Powell said that as a result of the exam, McGuckin is receiving treatment for the undisclosed illness, and that could put a stop to her drinking and help her become once again the mother her children loved.

"There's a lot of love there and there's a lot of beautiful things between this mother and her children," he said.

‘Deplorable,’ But Not a Felony

Robinson has argued that there is a lot wrong there, too, but in a preliminary hearing on whether McGuckin should face felony charges was unable to convince Heise that the squalor recorded on a videotape made after the standoff at the secluded home was bad enough to warrant more than a misdemeanor.

The testimony of McGuckin's oldest daughter, Erina, about a house overrun by vermin and a mother who spent money on alcohol before food did not convince the judge either, although Heise described the conditions in the house as "deplorable."

Heise reduced the felony child endangerment charges to misdemeanors and released McGuckin without bail, though the woman was not granted unsupervised meetings with her children, who remain in foster care.

One of the obstacles for McGuckin could be the family's lack of a home. The 40 acres and house where the McGuckins lived had been seized for unpaid taxes in 1999, and was sold for $53,000 in September 2000.

The New Jersey couple who bought the property reportedly have asked that McGuckin not be allowed back on the land.

Powell said, however, that a "Florida gentleman" has offered money for the family to buy a new home, and said others in Utah and around the country have donated.

To Show Change Will Come

"One of the things we would like to be able to show the court that this family has a home with running water, a means to purchase food, electricity, things like that," Powell said before Monday's hearing. "That's certainly one thing we need to show the court. We can never predict the future with absolute certainty, but if you take away the 24-hour care of a dying father, you add water, electricity and perhaps some money for food and certainly — hopefully things would be different."

Edgar Steele, an attorney who briefly represented McGuckin, said that more than $24,000 has been sent to a fund for the McGuckins that he started when he became involved in the case during the standoff.

Powell said she has seen her children only once since her arrest on May 29, and that visit was supervised by a state health-care worker.

McGuckin's supporters argue that she is being persecuted for her poverty and for the difficulties she faced caring for her husband, who died of complications from multiple sclerosis on May 12, after battling the disease for years.

County officials counter that every effort was made to offer assistance to the family, but that McGuckin repeatedly refused attempts to help her, instead allowing her children to grow up in a filthy home, often without enough to eat.

McGuckin could face a maximum of six months in jail and a $300 fine if she is found guilty of the misdemeanor charge.

ABC affiliate KXLY contributed to this report.