Slum Lords - Steven Green and Emilio Ippolito

According to the Times, slumlord Steven Green is selling off his properties. He was the owner of numerous apartment buildings. He was the owner of the 212-unit Amberwood Apartments in Temple Terrace that closed in 2002 after inspectors found more than 500 violations.

"Last year, Tampa code inspectors found scores of violations at Westport Commons, including faulty plumbing, broken windows, mildew, cracked and damaged walls, broken air conditioners, rodents and trash, such as mattresses and auto parts, strewn about the grounds. Of 134 apartments, only 28 passed inspection. Sixteen were declared unfit for human habitation.

Green has encountered such troubles before. He once was listed among New York's 10 worst landlords and still holds the record for the highest fines ever issued by Hillsborough County code enforcement, $1.3-million."

However his notoriety pales in comparison with Emilio Ippolito, at one point Hillsborough County's largest landlord, and slumlord extraodinaire.

Basically he got code violated numerous times for being a slumlord, and instead of fixing things up he decided to start one of those antigovernment fringe groups that was all the rage in the early to mid 1990's and go after the government. He dragged his daughter, Susan Mokdad, into it all his litigation, starting when she was 5 years old. He ended up losing most of his property.

From the Anti Government Movement Guidebook
"The emergence of Florida's first common law court in the mid-1990s
reflected all of these concerns. The guiding spirit behind the court's emergence
was Emilio Ippolito, a Tampa, Florida, property owner who possessed millions of
dollars worth of low-income housing. Ippolito, along with his daughter Susan
Mokdad, a co-owner, fought a long-running battle in the 1980s and 1990s with
city authorities over various building code violations in Ippolito's apartment
buildings. The structures incurred repeated fines for faulty wiring, and missing
extinguishers and smoke alarms. Some were declared fire hazards and closed down.
As their struggles with the city intensified, Ippolito and Mokdad became
increasingly politicized. Ippolito first formed Defenders of Life and Property,
Inc., in 1991, a group opposing city code enforcement boards. By 1993 he and
Mokdad had become leaders in a more radical group that called itself Pro Se
Litigants."

"Indeed, by 1993 Schramek, Ippolito, Mokdad, Eidson and others in the group
had launched dozens of suits against lawyers, judges, the Florida Bar, and other
organizations and individuals. Eidson went so far as to post a document in the
Hillsborough County courthouse calling for the formation of a "posse comitatus."
Ippolito and Mokdad even served brief stints in jail for fighting with bailiffs
during one trial. By then they had lost much of their property in their
continuing and losing battle with city authorities as it was seized or condemned
for various building violations. Hardened veterans now, thoroughly disenchanted
with the existing legal system, it was an easy step for them to form in mid-1993
a legal system of their own, the "Constitutional Court of We the People."
Ippolito and Mokdad and others not only formed the court, but advertised in
local papers that they would hear divorce proceedings for a $25 fee. Within a
year they moved from bogus divorce proceedings to issuing arrest warrants for
local judges. The Constitutional Court's "Fugitive Warrants Unit" warned judges
to "schedule appointments" or face "physical arrest at your home or workplace by
the Militia which could result in a dangerous confrontation."[19]

The common law court finally went too far when, in support of the
California tax protest group called the Pilot Connection Society, it mailed
threatening letters to the jury trying a fraud case against the tax protest
group's leaders. Ippolito, Mokdad, and others were arrested and indicted in the
spring of 1996 on conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and other charges,
covering the arrest warrants, the Pilot Connection letters and threats against
other federal officials and jury members."

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison. His daughter was sentenced to 10 years. According to the Bureau of Prisons he was released on 12-30-2005 . According to the Times his daughter died in prison in April 2002.

Interestingly, neither the Tampa Tribune nor the St. Pete Times did an article about his release.