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Realtor to help freed man purchase home

She felt a need to do something for the man who went to jail for a crime he didn't commit.

By ABHI RAGHUNATHAN
Published October 15, 2006

ST. PETERSBURG - People sent him checks, offered him jobs. One 10-year-old girl mailed him a $10 bill and an apology letter.

They were all moved by Alan Crotzer's story. This January, Crotzer was freed after spending 24 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit.

Now, Crotzer, 45, is getting even more help from a stranger, a St. Petersburg Realtor named Elizabeth Allstaedt. She is on a campaign to buy Crotzer a house.

"I value the fact that a house is a real facet of life in America," said Allstaedt. "I wanted to do a fundraiser for him, but I don't know anything about fundraisers. So I decided to do what I do best for him: Sell houses."

Allstaedt, 41, plans to donate a big chunk of her commission to a nonprofit, so Crotzer can have a home of his own. She specializes in luxury homes, and plans to donate 100 percent of the commissions she would get on houses that sell for $1-million or more to a fund for Crotzer.

Allstaedt, who works for RE/MAX Action First, also will donate a significant chunk of the commissions she'll get on other sales, and is hoping others in the community will join the effort.

Crotzer was imprisoned in 1981 after a jury found him and another man guilty of robbing a Tampa family and raping a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl. A judge sentenced Crotzer and his co-defendant, Douglas James, to 130 years in prison.

But as the years passed, evidence came to light that exonerated Crotzer. Crotzer's attorney, David Menschel, investigator Jeff Walsh, and Sam Roberts, a former volunteer with the Innocence Project, finally got the authorities to see that DNA tests and other evidence proved there was significant doubt that Crotzer was guilty of the crimes.

After being released from prison, Crotzer settled in Bartlett Park. But he said he soon decided he had to leave.

"I needed to be relocated from the area I was living in because it was so drug-infested," Crotzer said. "I didn't want to be in that area but I couldn't really afford to live anywhere else."

Then Allstaedt found him. She set him up in a two-bedroom apartment she owned in the Meadowlawn neighborhood. Crotzer now pays her a few hundred dollars a month in rent, and says that's significantly less than market value.

"Compared to where I was, it's like a mansion," Crotzer said.

But Allstaedt wants to do more now. She wants to raise enough money to buy Crotzer a home.

Why?

"He's 45 years old and starting on square one," Allstaedt said. "This is just the right thing to do."

Crotzer has not received any compensation from state legislators yet for his wrongful imprisonment. He has worked at St. Anthony's Hospital and at a ministry since then, and currently hopes to get a job with Operation PAR.

For now, he's still astonished by his two-bedroom apartment. He says Allstaedt has asked virtually nothing of him, except to occasionally attend services at her church. He's happy to oblige, because faith was one of the things that sustained him during his long imprisonment.

"I'm a true believer in God. I believe God is always blessing me," Crotzer said. "For me to have a home, I'll be blessed. What more could I ask for than for someone to offer me my own home?"

Abhi Raghunathan can be reached at araghunathan@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8472.

[Last modified October 14, 2006, 19:45:16]