SAN DIEGO – Prosecutors said a former police officer and his wife went on a $210,000 trashing of their French Valley home during foreclosure after their lender, San Diego Metropolitan CU, refused their offer to leave the home undamaged in exchange for a $10,000 payment.
But attorneys for Robert and Monique Acosta denied the extortion claims and said their clients had remodeled parts of the $700,000 home and were entitled to take the items they had purchased with them. They said the defendants planned to replace them with less expensive materials, which they were contractually obligated to do under the mortgage agreement.
Doors, gates, countertops, cabinets, appliances, light fixtures, chandeliers and air conditioners were among the items removed from the house, many of which were found in the days after the alleged rampage in storage space rented by the couple. Walls and carpet had been spray-painted and trees and bushes were thrown into the pool and whirlpool spa.
Credit union representatives estimate the couple caused $165,000 in damages and stole $44,000 worth of appliances and fixtures. The couple went so far as to have a banister smashed out with a sledgehammer so they could remove a portable bar, a prosecutor told jurors.
Robert Acosta, 40, and Monique Acosta, 36, are each charged in state court with carrying away or disposing of items from a mortgaged or foreclosed property, which carries a penalty of up to four years in jail.
Robert Acosta denied that he intentionally damaged the property when he took the witness stand Tuesday. Acosta’s testimony focused on whether he considered various items “fixtures.” “My opinion of what a fixture is might be different than yours,” Acosta told the prosecutor. Among the items Acosta said were not fixtures: outdoor electric lighting attached to the house and the kitchen sink.
A representative from the credit union discovered the mess when she inspected the home June 15, 2010, the day after the Acostas moved out.
Prosecutors showed photographs taken by a witness at a neighboring home showing the move-out. One picture shows Monique Acosta apparently chopping down a small cypress tree in the backyard as her young daughter looks on.
