Thread by @bykenarmstrong

A young mom with 4 kids—including twin boys, one with cerebral palsy, the other with autism and epilepsy—moves into a rental home near Milwaukee.

She’s been evicted twice before, so this, her new home, seems “a dream come true.”

She has no idea of the home’s history.
(THREAD)

2/ Her name is Angelica Belen.

The landlord, when she moves in, is Todd Brunner.

He’s known around Milwaukee as the “foreclosure king.” He buys homes others have lost to banks. City inspectors know him well. He’s got lots of building-code violations and outstanding fines.

3/ Belen’s life has been defined by abuse and deprivation.

Brunner’s life has been defined by excess.

So in this two-story house, at 7750 West Hicks Street in West Allis, Wisconsin, two decidedly different lives intersect.
propublica.org/article/milwau…

4/ Let’s start with the life of Angelica Belen, the tenant.

“The system and the important people in her life failed her over and over. She learned as a young girl not to trust anyone.”

That’s Belen’s aunt, writing to a judge.

5/ When Angelica was 3, her 17-month-old sister was found dead, beaten and starved.

Angelica’s mom goes to prison. So does her mom’s boyfriend.

This boyfriend also hurt Angelica, according to court testimony. He put a bottle of hot sauce in her mouth when she sucked her thumb.

6/ Angelica becomes a ward of the state.

In foster care, she stays with her sister, Rosalie.

Here’s a picture of them together, when Angelica was 5 and Rosalie, 4. It’s their first day in a new foster home.

7/ Both sisters would later recount being abused while in foster care.

In one home, they say, the foster parents forced them to kneel, for hours, on gravel or stand on one leg, with arms out to the side, hangers on their wrists. (The foster father denies they abused the girls.)

8/ Rosalie will recount watching her sister get physically attacked: getting her head slammed against a wall by a foster father, then, later, after the sisters are adopted when Angelica is 11, getting punched and kicked by their adoptive mother.

9/ An expert in investigating people’s horrific upbringings will later write, “Ms. Belen unfortunately experienced perhaps one of the most tragic developmental histories that this writer has come across in twenty years …”

10/ As a young adult, Belen has four children, three with special needs.

In the photo below, you see Belen with her twin sons and daughter, Naya.

Belen struggles to raise them by herself. She doesn’t have much of a support system.

11/ And she’ll be asked about this. By a police detective.

Why don’t you have a support system, he’ll ask her.

12/ Now let’s turn to the landlord, Todd Brunner.

In high school he was a football star, all-conference, honorable mention all-state. He was the defensive line’s biggest player. One newspaper story pegged him at 6’6”, 245.

In the yearbook photo below, he’s #72.

13/ He started buying rental homes when he was young. Really young. With a friend from high school, he bought two duplexes in Milwaukee when he was only 20.

He goes on to buy hundreds of other properties, many on Milwaukee’s economically distressed north side.

14/ “We usually completely rehabbed them turning them from the worst to the best properties in the area,” he’ll write.

He collects what he calls “some cool toys.” A 1918 Rauch & Lang electric car; a 1959 Jaguar; a 1984 Rolls Royce; a 2006 Bentley. And a 37-foot cigarette boat.

15/ Brunner feuds with neighbors. A judge orders him to stay away from one. Later, a police report says, the neighbor hears idling, outside, and sees Brunner on an ATV. “Take a picture, mother----er,” Brunner says.

Brunner is convicted of disorderly conduct and pays a $181 fine.

16/ He gets busted for driving drunk. It’s his third conviction. The prosecution asks for a 120-day jail sentence. The judge gives him 35 days.

Brunner weighs about 400 pounds now. He’s too big for the jail’s beds. And his back hurts.

The judge lets him out of jail early.

17/ Later, Brunner gets busted on federal charges. He pleads guilty to bank fraud and bankruptcy fraud.

The prosecution asks for a prison sentence of two years.

Brunner now weighs more than 600 pounds.

His lawyer pleads for mercy, saying Brunner is in physical agony.

18/ The judge, saying Brunner is “barely, barely ambulatory,” says it would be inhumane to imprison him. Doing so “borders on the unconscionable,” the judge says.

The judge gives Brunner probation.

And no fine.

19/ A police detective who worked on Brunner’s case for more than 6 years gets the news: No prison time.

“All of this work went for nothing,” she’ll say later.

“We often said, ‘If I were a criminal, I’d be a white-collar criminal, because nothing ever happens to them.’”

20/ The house that brings these two people together — Belen, the tenant, and Brunner, the landlord — has history.

In 1978, decades before Brunner bought the house, it caught fire, nearly killing a teenager inside.

It was an electrical fire.

21/ Afterward, a fire captain requested an electrical inspection of the house by the city’s Fire Prevention Bureau.

The captain wrote this in his report:

22/ When Belen moves in some 34 years later, there are still electrical problems.

The tenant just before Belen says, “The lights were going on and off all the time. I thought there were ghosts in there.”

And when Belen turns on the light above the kitchen sink, two bulbs blow.

23/ @propublica partnered with @journalsentinel, and with reporter @RaquelRutledge, to tell the story of Belen and Brunner. Rutledge, a Pulitzer Prize winner, is a public service investigative reporter.
propublica.org/article/milwau…

24/ The story describes a spring day in 2013.

On that day, Belen is scheduled to work.

On that same day, Brunner is supposed to appear in court.

The story also tells the before and after—showing how there are 2 kinds of justice, 1 for those who own, another for those who rent.