…”Sharon Pike. And she’s not supposed to be anywhere near a homeowners association.”
The driver, a man named Luis, pulled up a news article on his phone. Six years earlier, in another state, a woman named Sharon Pike had been convicted of embezzling from two HOAs where she’d served as treasurer. She’d been banned from holding any financial position in a community association.
The woman I knew as “Margaret Ellis,” our HOA president, was her. Same face, different hair.
“I figured it out last week,” Luis said. “My boss told me to keep my mouth shut because she pays on time. But I’ve towed four cars belonging to elderly people who couldn’t afford to get them back. One lady had to sell hers. I’m done keeping quiet.”
I took copies of everything to the police. A detective called me two days later. The real Margaret Ellis was eighty-three years old and lived in a nursing home in Florida. Sharon had stolen her identity, bought a condo in our neighborhood under her name and gotten herself elected HOA president within four months.
The scheme was simple. She’d invent a rule, have cars towed, pay the towing company from the HOA’s account at an inflated rate, then charge homeowners again for the “fee.” She pocketed both. In less than a year, she’d taken more than $180,000.
Police arrested her at the next HOA meeting, in front of about fifty homeowners. She was holding a clipboard titled “New Violations.”
The towing company lost its contract and was fined for participating in the altered invoices. Luis wasn’t charged; he testified as a witness. The HOA used insurance and recovered funds to repay every resident who’d been towed.
I got my $900 back. The elderly woman who had to sell her car got enough money to buy another one. Our neighborhood threw her a little party in the clubhouse when she drove it home.
Luis came to the party too. He’d started his own towing company by then. His first rule, he told us, is simple: he never tows from a person’s own driveway.
