Tampabay: Pinellas to warn that slivers sold

Pinellas County officials believe real estate speculator Don Connolly has purchased numerous slivers of land at delinquent tax auctions in hopes of selling the land to adjoining homeowners at a huge profit.

After plotting Connolly's holdings this week, county officials said they plan to notify the owners of property adjoining Connolly's land.

But their warning will bring little comfort.

"I don't know that identifying them will prevent that from happening," assistant property appraiser Pam Dubov said. "There's nothing we can do."

Connolly owns 50 Pinellas properties from Tarpon Springs down to South Pasadena, most of them landlocked slivers without addresses that are of little value to anyone but the surrounding property owners, county property officials said.

Connolly, 44, of Valrico could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

His tactics became national news this week after he erected a pink fence behind a $300,000 home in East Lake, and homeowners said he threatened to put up a fence along the water in a South Pasadena neighborhood.

Most of the parcels he has purchased were created by quirks such as surveying discrepancies or an oversight when properties changed hands, property officials said. The adjoining property owners often have no idea the land has been purchased at a delinquent tax auction.

Carl Seamer said he received a letter from Connolly five months ago.

It explained that Connolly had bought a sliver of land 10 feet by 100 feet between two properties owned by Seamer in the Highpoint area near St. Petersburg-Clearwater International Airport.

Seamer thought that his two properties abutted each other, and that the property Connolly purchased was probably caused by a surveying error.

Seamer said Connolly bought it for $4,300. He said Connolly offered to sell for $25,000. Seamer said Connolly told him he had someone who was interested in parking some trucks on the property.

"I believe he was trying to put a little scare into me," said Seamer, a plant operator for the Pinellas County School Board. "Right now, I've got a lawyer on it."

Darlene Cosgrove has been living in her home on 98th Avenue N in Pinellas Park for 25 years. She assumed she owned the land right up to her chain-link fence in the back.

She learned differently when Connolly contacted her and told her he had purchased a 16-foot-wide stretch of land that runs the length of her back yard.

Connolly bought it for $2,200 at a tax deed sale in November. He offered to sell it to Cosgrove for $10,000.

Cosgrove declined. Connolly pulled a trailer onto the property and said he planned to take down her chain link fence, which he said encroached on his property. Cosgrove said the trailer didn't have a license plate, so she had it towed. Connolly sued, she said, and she ended up having to pay for the cost of towing. Afterward, she learned the asking price for the property had doubled to $20,000. Cosgrove said she hasn't had contact with Connolly since.

"Why did he buy this except to intimidate and extort from me?" she said.

Dubov said that while most of Connolly's properties are undevelopable parcels, some were typical vacant lots that could be developed. At least one is a single-family home, and one is a mobile home, she said.

County appraisers say they have not come across any properties that might affect nearly as many homeowners as those in the East Lake subdivision of Tarpon Woods, where Connolly purchased a lake surrounded by 15 homes, or in South Pasadena, where he bought submerged lands abutting 61 waterfront homes.

Dubov said her office received dozens of calls Wednesday from waterfront property owners asking if they have anything to worry about. Although callers may not get an immediate answer, Dubov assured them her office will check property records to find out.

Employees in her office have identified a total of 30 properties considered "common element" areas -- such as retention ponds or recreation areas -- that have taxable value and are owned privately, though not by Connolly. Most of those are owned by developers who are still building, she said, and none are in tax arrears.

Typically, Dubov said, when a developer has finished building a subdivision, the common areas are deeded to the homeowners association. The taxable value of that land is then reduced to zero, she said, and therefore cannot fall into tax arrears.

Dubov said county attorneys are attempting to draft proposed changes to state law that would allow property appraisers to affix a zero tax value to common-area properties that are not transferred to a homeowners association.

County officials said Wednesday they are exploring other ways to protect property owners.

Commissioner Ken Welch said he has talked to county staff members and to Tax Collector Diane Nelson about what can be done.

"It appears to be a perfectly legal transaction, but it's unethical, to be sure," Welch said.

"It definitely has our attention. I certainly feel for the property owners," Welch said. "The guy's an opportunistic miscreant as far as I'm concerned."

Connolly, who has declared bankruptcy twice, also was charged by the state with being a tax cheat in 1997.

The charges revolved around his withholding of state sales tax from the Florida Department of Revenue from Kinjite Motors, a used car dealership he ran from three Hillsborough locations from 1992 to 1994.

State investigators said Connolly collected $634,477 in sales taxes but remitted just $121,763 to the state.

In May 1997, Connolly was offered a plea deal and pleaded no contest to one count of first-degree grand theft. A judge withheld adjudication, placed Connolly on 15 years' probation and ordered him to make $134,378 in restitution to the state.

When questioned by state investigators, Connolly said he had no formal education and was "not gifted when it comes to money."

He further stated, "I'm a survivor, . . . A big man. . . . I've been to the block many times . . . won some . . . lost some. . . . I always carry on. . . . You'll never prove that I intentionally took tax money."

-- Times staff writers Lisa Greene and Jeff Testerman contributed to this report.

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