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© St. Petersburg Times, published February 19, 2003
SEMINOLE -- Carol Wedge thought the two men walking around her property last month were county employees. She says she occasionally sees men across the street from her home working on a drainage area.
But there was no county truck parked out front. Just two men poking around the side of her house.
After meeting them, one in particular, she says she became concerned that maybe she was being swindled.
Anthony Tocco told her he owned the parcel next to her home. The 30- by 100-foot piece of land includes part of an easement, sidewalk and road.
Tocco said then he was considering the site for a cellular phone tower or as a refuge for mentally retarded children. "He said that three or four times before I said, 'What's your game here?' " said Ms. Wedge, 49.
The parcel was up for sale, too, Tocco told her. No one paid taxes on the property for several years so he bought it last month at a tax sale.
Tocco, 35, says he bought the land for just under $500. On Tuesday, he sold it to the county for $2,750. "Not a bad return," he said Tuesday.
Tocco also is the same man who landed Saturday in a helicopter on a strip of communal lawn at Shadow Lakes condominiums in Largo. He bought that 25- by 300-foot piece of land after the condominium board failed to pay taxes on it. Tocco says the only way to reach the property is from the air since Largo police say he'd be trespassing if he got there from the street or a retention pond.
Tocco calls what he's doing "gumball machine real estate." It's quick and easy. He says he owns a couple of other slivers of land in the county that he bought at tax sales.
"I want to amass an empire of gumball machine properties," he said.
Ms. Wedge said she received a letter from the county that was supposed to inform her of the land sale next to her home on Evergreen Avenue. But she says she had no idea what it was about. "They send out these vague letters with no real description," she said.
County Property Appraiser Jim Smith said Saturday that his office has done all it can to let surrounding property owners know when a deed is for sale.
Soon Tocco, Ms. Wedge's new neighbor, was putting up for-sale signs on the easement and spray-painting his phone number on the grass.
She called the Sheriff's Office and asked for help to keep Tocco off her property. She called county officials and asked them to do something.
Charlie Norwood, director of operations for the county's Public Works Department, said the property should have belonged to the county years ago but never did because of a mixup in the replatting of the subdivision in the 1960s.
Tocco said he lives in Clearwater and makes his living selling lists of foreclosed properties to real estate investors. According to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records, he has been arrested seven times and convicted twice: once in 1995 for carrying a concealed weapon and once in 1996 for assault on a Clearwater police officer.
Ms. Wedge said Tuesday she's relieved her predicament is solved. "But I have mixed feelings," she said. "Frankly, I always had confidence that the county would do something about the property next to my home, but the system has got to change."
Norwood says the county is working at solving the problem so similar situations can be avoided. He said employees currently are looking at about 50 similar parcels.
As for Tocco, he says he'd like to take Ms. Wedge to dinner. "It's a done deal now and I'm ready to take her out to Carrabba's to make up for it," he said.
And if she says no? "I'll send her a gift certificate."