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Jury finds Wilson guilty in house stealing

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POLSON — After an hour of deliberation, a Lake County jury Tuesday found Brent Arthur Wilson guilty of theft, deceptive practices and tampering with public records or information, all felonies, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor. 

He faces a maximum of 30 years in prison and fines up to $151,000. Sentencing was set for Wilson on Aug. 19. 

The charges all stem from the attempted theft of a log home and its surrounding land at 2948 Meadow Lane in 2009.  

After a morning of voir dire, or jury selection, on July 12 in Judge Kim Christopher’s court, Deputy County Attorney Jessica Cole-Hodgkinson selected a three-woman, nine-man jury for Wilson’s trial. 

After a break in the action at 3 p.m. on July 12, the prosecution had an additional 17 witnesses to question. 

Wilson served as his own counsel, refusing the services of Polson attorney Steve Eschenbacher. Wilson answered every question asked of him by saying, “Thank you for the question. I am the beneficiary, and that question should be directed to the trustee.”

Wilson spent most of the day Monday reading an IRS publication at the defendant’s table.

Wilson came to Polson in 2009 “unemployed, deeply in debt and living in a travel trailer,” Cole-Hodgkinson said in the prosecution’s opening statement. 

But Wilson was a man with a plan, Cole-Hodgkinson said, and that plan was confiscating houses.

Wilson researched houses in foreclosure, but Ed McCurdy was paying attention, according to Cole-Hodgkinson. McCurdy noticed his real estate signs were gone, the locks were changed and his keys no longer fit. McCurdy went to the clerk and recorder’s office, where Wilson “had filed a slew of paperwork asserting he was the owner,” of the house and the 3.2 acre parcel of land, Hodgkinson said. McCurdy followed Wilson home and called the sheriff. 

The prosecution also said Wilson had written his own name in the Lake County tract books. The tract books contain the chain of ownership of the property from the time the United States government gave over title for the property and are located in the plat room at the Lake County Courthouse. 

On July 12, the prosecution called witnesses Ed McCurdy, Aaron Hughes and Susan Newton.

McCurdy, a real estate agent/broker for Prudential Montana Real Estate, testified his firm had listed the four-bedroom, three-bath house at 2948 Meadow Lane in Jette Meadows before the house went into foreclosure and also after foreclosure when the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation bought the house. 

McCurdy noticed for sale signs he had installed on the upper deck of the house were missing as he was driving to another property. When McCurdy tried to enter the house, his keys did not work. A sign posted on the inside of a window said the property had gone through foreclosure. When McCurdy called the number listed on the sign, he left messages, but no one returned his calls. 

The next day McCurdy went first to First American Title to see if the property had changed hands, then to the office of his father, who is an attorney, and then to the Lake County Clerk and Recorder’s Office where Wilson had filed documents on Aug. 7, 2009.

McCurdy said the documents don’t conform to transfer of real property. The quitclaim deed, for instance, was from Phyllis L. Walker, who was not on the chain of title.

McCurdy also testified under Cole-Hodgkinson’s questioning that the fastest way to check records of ownership of real property was to look at the tract books, located in the plat room of the Lake County Court House. Hughes, First American Title vice president and office manager, said the business does title insurance searches, which required them to check real property records and establish a clean chain of title to a property. 

Hughes said Wilson’s name came through the First American Title office when Creative Finance in Missoula requested a title insurance search. Creative Finance was in the process of approving a loan for Wilson for $125,000 on the Meadow Road property. 

Hughes said First American Title did not issue title insurance because they determined Wilson was not the owner of the property. 

Lake County Plat Department Supervisor Susan Newton testified she keeps the tract books for the county and only she writes in the books.

The entry with Wilson’s name was not in Newton’s handwriting. 

The tract books are available to the public, and Wilson had visited the plat room and allegedly tampered with the tract books.

After a break in the action at 3 p.m. on July 12, the prosecution had an additional 17 witnesses to question. 

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