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A multitude of legal problems for Miell: Criminal charges scheduled for June trial
(Gazette, The (Cedar Rapids, IA) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 20--CEDAR RAPIDS -- No landlord in Linn County owns more property than Robert K. Miell, and perhaps none is in as much trouble.
The 53-year-old was quiet and studious when he grew up on a farm near Alburnett in the 1950s and 1960s. There was little indication that he would become a rich man and the largest landlord in his home county.
Miell owns about 1,000 rental units on property worth up to $80 million. Only three corporations -- Alliant Energy, Archer Daniels Midland and AEGON USA -- own more land in the county in terms of dollar value, according to county tax records.
But the man who many say is still quiet and unassuming now has legal troubles to match the size of his portfolio.
On Tuesday, a federal jury ordered him to pay up to $1.5 million to the American
Family Mutual Insurance company, which sued him over home insurance claims he filed that it said were fraudulent.
In addition, Miell faces 19 counts of criminal mail fraud in federal court. Six of the counts are related to the insurance fraud case; the other 13 charges allege he cheated renters out of their damage deposits. Each count carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison.
Agents from the Internal Revenue Service are investigating his finances, with one agent sitting in the courtroom during his civil case this month. One agent said the IRS received about 100 phone calls about Miell, from disgruntled former tenants, in a couple of weeks' time.
It's known, from court testimony and documents, that Miell's monthly rental income is about $500,000, and his net worth is about $50 million.
But his private life is largely a mystery.
And though he owns a home worth about $1.3 million in a gated community in the hills just east of Cedar Rapids' city limits, he lists his address as 1855 First Ave. SE, his real estate office, in both the phone book and court records.
Miell has ignored or politely declined several requests for an interview.
Growing up, becoming rich
Miell grew up on a farm north of Robins, the oldest of Keith and Marilyn Miell's two children.
Dave Miell of Cedar Rapids, a first cousin who grew up in Central City and was two years older than Bob Miell, said Miell's father was a Realtor who dealt mostly with farm land.
"That's how it got started. If it wasn't for his father, he'd probably never have been in (real estate)," Dave Miell said.
Keith Miell died in 1999, but Marilyn Miell still lives in the area.
Schoolmates from Alburnett and relatives say Miell kept to himself and didn't respond much when other students picked on him. He was quiet, wore glasses, dressed nicely and was dedicated to his schoolwork.
"He was a very good student. He was interested in school and did his best," said Larry Lebeda, who taught in the Alburnett schools for 34 years and had Miell in biology class. "And he learned quickly. ... He always turned in good work." During high school, Miell learned finish carpentry while working for a small contractor.
He graduated in 1972 and went to the University of Iowa, where he graduated with degrees in political science and economics, according to his testimony in court.
In 1976, he got his Realtor's license. He bought his first property, lived in the home, worked on it and began to rent it.
He went on to law school at Drake University in Des Moines but dropped out just short of earning a degree because he wanted to devote more time to his real estatebusiness, which was gaining momentum.
Among his first purchases was an 18-unit apartment building he bought with a friend. He continued buying property in the 1980s, and his real estate empire grew.
"He found he was good at it. He could do a lot of the work himself, and he just started buying properties," said Peter Riley, his attorney in the civil case that just concluded. "He reinvested what he earned in more properties." Miell is a hard worker who, after all these years, still plows snow and mows lawns at his properties, Riley said.
"With his personality, we could never figure out how he got so good at it because he's not really that personable," cousin Dave Miell said. "He's real quiet, but when it comes to money, he's aggressive." Over the years, Miell became a regular at sheriff's foreclosure sales, where homes go up for auction when the owners can't pay taxes. By the mid-1990s, Miell was buying dozens of properties each year. In 1996, he bought at least 59 properties. In 2000, he bought at least 68.
Problems begin
At first, Miell did all the work on his rental properties himself. After making improvements to the newly purchased property, he would refinance the debt and then rent it.
Now he has more than 20 employees -- five office workers, a dozen workers who clean and paint, and five or six who do more technical maintenance.
City records indicate he's had trouble following building inspection rules.
Cedar Rapids Fire Marshal Jim Thatcher said Miell has installed fireplaces and water heaters and finished attics without first getting permits or having the work inspected after improvements are done. Thatcher said inspectors know of about 20 such fireplaces in Miell's properties.
"It's a continual problem," Thatcher said. "It's a habit that needs to be broken." Thatcher said the city is notifying Miell that he has 30 days to turn in information on all the work he's done on rental properties so the city can issue permits and conduct inspections.
After the 30-day period, inspectors will issue citations for any violations they find.
Thatcher points out that Miell's code problems should be understood in the context of him being the largest landlordin the city. A landlord with 1,000 units is more likely than one with 10 units to have problems -- with building code requirements or with tenants.
Grievances against Miell were highlighted in a series The Gazette published in 2004. By then, he was often in Linn County District Court for civil cases several times a week, either suing a tenant, evicting one or being sued himself. He and his companies have been involved in several hundred such lawsuits over the years.
Miell, some of his tenants have complained, didn't fix things and has a complicated, 12-page lease dealing with security deposits and other rules.
He also had mysterious business partners on his leases. A former employee suggested to The Gazette that the partners didn't exist. One judge scolded Miell for not being able to contact a partner even though he claimed they'd been working together for 10 years, according to court documents.
Not long after The Gazette wrote about the mysterious partners, Miell dropped their names from paperwork he filed with Iowa's secretary of state.
American Family Mutual Insurance sued him in 2004,arguing that Miell, after a 2001 hailstorm, submitted claims for repairs to roofs on 145 of his properties, even though he hadn't repaired the roofs.
Miell said he believed he had only one year to complete the repairs and because he couldn't do the work in time, he lied and told American Family he'd completed the work. He didn't intend to defraud the company, he said.
In the pending criminal charges against him, prosecutors reference the American Family case and also allege that beginning in 2002 until at least 2004, that Miell defrauded several of his renters by keeping parts of their damage deposits after they left his properties.
The indictment accuses him of inflating the cleaning, repair and replacement costs until the total met or exceeded the damage deposit. If renters sued him, he produced invoices from a company called The Home Doctor to prove he had spent money to fix the damage. According to the indictment, the invoices were fake.
He is scheduled to go on trial June 9 on those charges.
Elizabeth Kutter of The Gazette contributed to this report.
¦Contact the writer: (319) 398-8273 or adam.belz@gazettecommunications.com
To see more of The Gazette, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.gazetteonline.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The Gazette, Cedar Rapids, Iowa
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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