When the Detroit Land Bank set out to turn Detroit's vacant and abandoned homes into productive use, it likely didn't have this scenario in mind: An ex-con using a house as a drug den.
That's what federal prosecutors allege was happening at a land bank owned home on Ward Street, where Detroit police last month got a tip about an armed man selling drugs out of the house, even though no one was authorized to live here.
According to court documents, Detroit police went to the house on the same day that they got the tip and found a man and a woman sitting at a coffee table covered with suspicious items:
- Two clear, knotted bags of suspected heroin
- Two clear knotted bags of suspected marijuana
- One black scale, a box of opened sandwich bags and $21 in cash.
According to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday in U.S. District Court, the man at the table was Alton Odoms, a three-time felon who did time for a 1985 second-degree murder conviction and escaped from jail 11 years later, triggering another felony conviction in 1996.
While at the house, the complaint stated, police also found a loaded .40-caliber handgun on top of a bed in a bedroom, which "appeared to be livable." Multiple rounds of ammunition were also found stashed in a closet near the living room, the complaint said.
Odoms, the complaint stated, appeared to be living in the house as police also found a wallet with identification cards and his car keys in the house. During the search, Odoms asked the officers to retrieve his cellular phone and glasses from the bedroom.
Detroit police also seized Odom's Michigan driver's license from his vehicle. The license lists the Ward home as his address.
According to an affidavit signed by ATF Special Agent Nicholas Mascorro, a Detroit police officer verified through Wayne County tax records that the Ward house was owned by the Detroit Land Bank. A land bank street investigator also verified the information.
"The street investigator confirmed that the Detroit Land Bank owned (the house) and that no one was authorized to be in the residence," Mascorro wrote in the affidavit. "According to the investigator, anyone inside the location was there illegally."
Odoms is charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Officials with the Detroit Land Bank could not be immediately reached for comment.
According to the Detroit Land Bank's 3rd Quarter Report, the entity has sold 9,200 total properties since the inception of the decade-old program.
"As always, we will continue to look for meaningful ways to put the publicly-owned properties in the DLBA inventory back into productive use," Saski Thompson, executive director of the land bank authority, wrote in an April 16 letter.
According to the letter, the land bank authority has been working to expand its " visibility and accessibility in the community" through meetings and office hours "held out in the neighborhoods, not just in our office downtown." The client services division also was moved to its inventory department so that staff "has a detailed knowledge of the DLBA inventory and can address questions directly."
Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @Tbaldas
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