Former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - Richard McLean and his wife, attorney Edith Stevens, used an arcane common law called “adverse possession” to claim the land for their own.
All McLean needed was to develop an “attachment” to it.
Undoubtedly, his city connections couldn’t have hurt, either.
In the court papers, McLean and his family admit to regularly trespassing on the Kirlins’ property.
They created paths. They said they put on a political fundraiser and parties on it (though not a single photograph of these events surfaced in court documents).
How did the Kirlins learn this travesty was afoot? Susie Kirlin was warned about it at a Boulder High School football game. Be cautious, her neighbor warned, someone has designs on your property.
“I laughed when I first heard it. I really didn’t know that anyone had an emotional attachment to our land,” Kirlin tells me. “I was quite surprised. I was even more surprised that someone could claim our land. But my neighbor told me this was a well- connected person and I should take it seriously.”
When the couple began building a fence on the land - which is within Boulder city limits, not out in the wilderness - McLean was able, according to the Kirlins, to obtain a restraining order in an exceptionally speedy 2 1/2 hours.
Boulder District Judge Morris Sandstead, who served with McLean, issued the restraining order quite swiftly.
Serendipity, I guess.
http://www.denverpost.com/harsanyi/ci_7501264
Hard feelings on Hardscrabble Drive
Land ruling protest draws hundreds
Several protesters yelled “shame”and “thief” at McLean and Stevens as they drove away from their home shortly before the rally began at noon.
One woman stepped up to the car’s passenger side window and yelled, “How can you live with yourself?”
http://www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/nov/19/protest-draws-hundreds-hard-feelings-on-drive/
More like collusion and Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law--which are Federal crimes.
Somebody ping Troy Eid, the U.S. Attorney. A grand jury needs to be convened....preferably outside of Colorado.
Oh and by the way, Troy is a Republican.
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/co/