Bank files to foreclose on Tripp's Columbia house Lawyer notes money woes, unemployment
By Lisa Goldberg
Baltimore Sun
December 5, 2001
Linda R. Tripp, whose secret recordings of White House intern Monica Lewinsky sparked a presidential impeachment, may lose her Columbia house to foreclosure - the result of economic woes from a prolonged period of unemployment.
Officials working on behalf of CitiMortgage Inc. filed a foreclosure action in Howard County Circuit Court against Tripp for her Cricket Pass house late last month. The court papers note a mortgage balance of $116,098.61, including late charges and interest. The papers do not provide additional details on the debt.
Yesterday, Joseph Murtha, who represented Tripp in the state's unsuccessful prosecution on wiretap charges, said that his client, who has not lived in the house for months, has been out of work since she was fired from her Department of Defense job, after refusing to resign from the appointed post in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
Tripp now lives in Middleburg, Va., he said.
"It's been very difficult for Linda to focus on where her career goes from this point in her life," Murtha said. Tripp had hoped to continue as a government employee but has not been rehired, he said. "She anticipated 30 years of government service."
Tripp and her suburban home in Hickory Ridge village became the subject of intense scrutiny in early 1998 when her tape recordings of conversations about Lewinsky's sexual relationship with President Bill Clinton became public and again when a grand jury indicted her on charges of violating the state's wiretap law.
That case was dropped by state prosecutors in May last year.
Cricket Pass was often clogged with television satellite trucks, all eager for a glimpse of the woman whose tapings led to Clinton's impeachment in December 1998.
By fall of last year, though, she was no longer living in Columbia, instead renting out the 24-year-old Colonial-style house, which was valued at slightly more than $180,000 as of Jan. 1.
When she moved to Virginia is unclear, but she registered to vote in Fauquier County in August last year.
No one is living in the Columbia house, Murtha said yesterday, adding that he is trying to determine whether additional payments not recorded at the time the foreclosure action was filed have been made.
The hope is that Tripp can resolve any issues with the mortgage and possibly sell the house on her own, he said.
"Economically, things have been rather difficult," Murtha said. Still, "Linda has been making an effort to take care of her responsibilities."
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The article clearly states that she was renting out the home in Columbia.