Squatters take over $4M San Francisco mansion: lawsuit

A $4 million San Francisco mansion has grow to be floor zero for what neighbors and officers say is wild squatter takeover — with the weird saga unfolding for over a yr whereas the metropolis didn’t act.

The house on thirty second Avenue within the Sea Cliff neighborhood, probably the most elite, prosperous, and visually beautiful neighborhoods the Metropolis by the Bay has to supply, has apparently grow to be a revolving door of unfamiliar faces, with neighbors reporting unwelcome exercise in any respect hours.

“I’m going to mattress nervous. I get up nervous,” one neighbor informed ABC.

“It actually has been a 24-hour surveillance that’s occurring,” one other neighbor stated. “Individuals are at a breaking level.”

And the midnight insanity isn’t simply speak.

Neighbors say surveillance footage captured unknown individuals at round 4 a.m. loading suitcases right into a automobile, one other claims her scooter was additionally stolen. The neighborhood is so panicked they’ve organized right into a WhatsApp group named “watch 250” to combat again and gather surveillance footage.

Luxurious automobiles have additionally been noticed outdoors the property, with some showing to don’t have any license plates. Obvious break-ins, theft, sketchy characters and a significant flooding incident have plagued the extremely well-to-do neighborhood the place Robin Williams as soon as lived since round Could 2025. Although the home has set empty since 2019.

What’s occurring inside the home stays a thriller, however the how the squatters got here to be there’s a loopy story involving a convicted fraudster, allegedly dodgy property deeds and an absent rich Chinese language proprietor, stories the San Francisco Customary.

Property data present the deed bounced between two individuals, convicted fraudster Brandon Aadee and a felon named Diana Peng, no less than seven occasions over the previous yr, together with 4 occasions since July. Every now declare the opposite particular person isn’t the official proprietor. Aaadee even tried to unload the house, however failed when the realtor smelled a rat.

Aadee’s prison previous surprised neighbors once they discovered the accused squatter’s title and commenced trying him up on-line. He was federally charged in 2008 with stealing greater than $48,000 in Hurricane Katrina reduction, although he wasn’t a New Orleans resident or a sufferer. FEMA paid him out over $34,000 and the Crimson Cross lined $13,000 for his resort stays.

He was additionally charged with bank card fraud, after lifting a Visa from an envelope in an SF condominium hallway and working up greater than $11,000 over six months, a lot of it at Aladdin Bail Bonds places in Marin and San Mateo, the Customary reported.

Aadee pleaded responsible to each federal prices in 2009 and was sentenced to a yr and a day in federal jail, roughly $60,000 in liens, earlier than being out and in of custody on probation violations by 2012.

In September final yr, San Mateo County charged him with 5 felonies, together with identification theft and possession of a cast driver’s license, over an alleged August incident. The arrest warrant continues to be lively.

Peng isn’t any stranger to a courtroom both. She was convicted of felony perjury in San Mateo County in March 2008 and sentenced to 3 years’ probation and 90 days in jail. In 2012, going through 5 felonies together with forgery and utilizing one other particular person’s ID, she pleaded to identification theft and business housebreaking and served seven months.

Three years later, charged with 4 extra counts together with forging a driver’s license, she was sentenced to 2 years.

Neighbors say the property appeared to have been deserted by its proprietor in 2020. However over the previous yr, a bunch of roughly a dozen individuals started exhibiting up on the home, with some apparently transferring in.

“Then at some point the entrance door of the home was damaged down…” a neighbor informed ABC. “Then a deed was recorded in a person’s title and that began this complete course of.”

Peng and Aadee each used allegedly cast paperwork to idiot police on a number of occassions once they have been detained making an attempt to achieve entry to the house.

The San Francisco Police Division stated the District Lawyer’s Workplace is investigating the case.

And now, after neighbors say they complained to town over the previous yr and a broken water primary outdoors the disputed mansion induced large flooding, the Metropolis Lawyer’s Workplace has lastly gone to court docket.

The workplace filed a lawsuit towards each alleged squatters, accusing them of an “illegal scheme to acquire possession of a property positioned at 250 thirty second Avenue… by the recording of cast deeds with the San Francisco Assessor’s workplace that have been fraudulently notarized.”

“Defendants are successfully making an attempt to steal a home and promote it to make hundreds of thousands in revenue. That’s fraud, and they’re making an attempt to revenue off that crime,” Metropolis Lawyer David Chiu stated when saying the lawsuit.

The alleged deed scheme has additionally raised issues about notaries being caught up in fraud.

“It’s tragic,” Invoice Anderson, vice chairman of Authorities Affairs of the Nationwide Notary Affiliation, informed ABC, including that the notary turns into a sufferer in these alleged deed frauds.

“What we’re discovering on the Nationwide Notary Affiliation… 12% of our $100,000 insurance coverage claims since 2023, these have been seal fraud circumstances,” Anderson stated.

The property belongs to Wei Wang, an absentee Chinese language proprietor, in keeping with what investigators say is the official deed. Wang has apparently been struggling to enter the US to safe the property and is years behind on taxes for it.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisor’s have been requested on Tuesday by town’s tax collector to public sale off the house as it’s greater than 5 years behind on property taxes — the opening bid would begin at a comparatively low cost $500,000, but when somebody, anybody, pays off the greater than $324,000 taxes, then the public sale will get canned. The board additionally has to approve the public sale, leaving stressed neighbors in limbo for now.

In the meantime, California’s soft-on-crime legal guidelines stop police from instantly eradicating trespassers, leaving owners trapped in prolonged court docket processes.

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