Paragon Closing!!!!!!

[OverkillZJ]

Badlands Offroad is cool and all, I have fun there, but it's NOTHING compared to PAP

Badlands just doesn't have enough land, and it's a lot further from here.

[Sudz]

[Sudz]

Here is the entire thread:
http://paragonap.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16138

read the tail end of the thread linked by SirFuego

holy shit! - this is the lawyer / judge "team" that fawked PAP

http://www.citizensvoice.com/article...69538_top2.txt

[slim616]

on cbs news tonight they mentioned the case against these two judges. The were talking about how they sentenced one girl to a month in jail for just writing a threatening message to another girl on her myspace page.

[SirFuego]

I saw this posted on another forum, too. I've a feeling this is going to be a loooong list of victims calling to find out their rights...
http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/pam/Victim...orruption.html

[greengc4x4]

Can anyone make a brief paragraph as to the state of paragon. i read the link but it all confused me because I havent followed the story closely at all

[Sudz]

Can anyone make a brief paragraph as to the state of paragon.l

this is what i garnered from the news articles:

A corrupt attorney in Luzerne County, Pa was kicking back money to two county judges in exchange for favorable court rulings.

Apparently it has been going on for years and was well known to the citizens in the area who were powerless to stop it.

One of the biggest scams involving the attorney was the building of a private juvenile detention center (at taxpayer expense). He paid the judges to close the existing county operated center and transfer the kids to ‘his’ facility. He then billed the county on a per-detainee basis. Also, new juvenile cases, which in hindsight were marginal or shouldn’t have gone to trail at all, were in fact prosecuted. Apparently this scam slammed a lot of innocent kids.

The attorney’s next scam was to build a cargo airport in the region. Enter the Paragon Tract. Paragon held a 25-year lease on the land. Through kickbacks and backdoor deals, the attorney, county judges, former mayor, and a few others wrestled the land from paragon citing they violated the lease. There is also a PA State representative involved who is now claiming he didn’t know what was going on.

Added twist – the attorney’s secretary is also the county clerk. Apparently she was tossing paperwork that paragon filed during the court proceedings. The door slammed on paragon’s case when the judge ruled that paragon filed their paperwork late.

Kyle and Stephanie Knosp, who ran PAP, were locked off the property, literally.

Local folks had enough and tipped off the FEDS. The two county judges are going to prison. The attorney suddenly sold his interest in the airport deal and disappeared.

These assclowns hurt a lot of people. I feel sorry for the innocent kids who got caught up in this bullshit. Peeps are now filing lawsuits to have their cases re-tried or dismissed. It’s a fawking mess. It has also made national headlines.

Some of the booty = a Luxury Yacht Club Townhouse in Florida, a yacht, high end Euro sedans, multi-million dollar residences in PA, etc



Paragon remains closed.


edit: fixed some typos

[SirFuego]

Ron, that's about what I got from the articles.

Further abridged version:
- Kyle and Steph (Paragon owners) got evicted for shady reasons.
- Judge and others associated with upholding their eviction eventually get thrown in jail for years of corruption.
- We are all being hopeful Kyle and Steph get another chance and prove that their eviction was unlawful.

[slim616]

I really see in the next few years something opening back up again, maybe not under the pargon name. Just so who ever still owns the land can start making some money off of it. Exspecially with the way things are, every dollars counts when you have to pay property tax on a piece of land being used or not.

[greengc4x4]

So what are the chances of this opening back up? Im assuming this is going to be a very long and drawn out court case that is going to have the land closed for quite a while

[Sudz]

One of the biggest scams involving the attorney was the building of a private juvenile detention center (at taxpayer expense). He paid the judges to close the existing county operated center and transfer the kids to ‘his’ facility. He then billed the county on a per-detainee basis. Also, new juvenile cases, which in hindsight were marginal or shouldn’t have gone to trail at all, were in fact prosecuted. Apparently this scam slammed a lot of innocent kids.

lastest

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html

[OverlandXJ]

This just keeps getting better.

[Sudz]

Added twist – the attorney’s secretary is also the county clerk. Apparently she was tossing paperwork that paragon filed during the court proceedings. The door slammed on paragon’s case when the judge ruled that paragon filed their paperwork late.

handcuffs will be coming next

http://www.wnep.com/wnep-luz-prothon...,7801329.story

[Sudz]

Update 6-19-09

Powell is the attorney that screwed paragon

http://citizensvoice.com/news/powell..._kickback_case

http://www.timesleader.com/news/Atto...6-10-2009.html




http://www.standardspeaker.com/news/...l_was_standout

Gladstone obtained an option from Philip Seltzer to buy land for the airport. To open the negotiations, Powell gave Seltzer a present of a first edition after learning that Seltzer, now deceased, liked rare books.

After obtaining the option, Gladstone went to court and evicted a tenant, Paragon Adventure Park.

[SirFuego]

Oh that's good news.

Let's think hypothetically that Paragon someone is allowed to go back there. What about some sort of online "petition" showing interest from the off-roading community to volunteer their time to clean up the trails to get Paragon re-opened ASAP?

[Sudz]

If Paragon reopened, half the wheelers on the east coast would giz their jockeys – getting peeps to do trail cleanup & repair wouldn’t be a problem

The bigger question is whether the estate of the late Philip Seltzer would reestablish a lease agreement with kyle & stephanie

Hope Springs Eternal

[SB406]

Hope Springs Eternal

Obama '08!

I agree that it would be cool if PAP reopened, but really, it's over. Let it go.
:twocents:

[OverkillZJ]

Obama '08!

I agree that it would be cool if PAP reopened, but really, it's over. Let it go.
:twocents:

Why? If the lease was found to be violated by these asshats and Kyle and Steph kicked out, profit lost, etc; something can happen. It could be years, but it's not over. That land isn't all that great unless you can fill in a valley.

[Ken L]

Obama '08!

I agree that it would be cool if PAP reopened, but really, it's over. Let it go.
:twocents:

That's the exact apathetic reason why we're losing trails and access nation wide. The Green groups don't let it go when they lose, in fact they gather their forces and attack harder.

Get involved in your state OHV associations. Keep your access. Work to restore access. Don't just lie down.

[rstrucks]

That's the exact apathetic reason why we're losing trails and access nation wide. The Green groups don't let it go when they lose, in fact they gather their forces and attack harder.

Get involved in your state OHV associations. Keep your access. Work to restore access. Don't just lie down.

Amen!

That is all.

[ATL ZJ]

That's the exact apathetic reason why we're losing trails and access nation wide. The Green groups don't let it go when they lose, in fact they gather their forces and attack harder.

Get involved in your state OHV associations. Keep your access. Work to restore access. Don't just lie down.

Yep. I was looking at Rubithon pictures today and 5 years ago, there was no way I would have believed you if you told me that the Rubicon (at least parts of it) would outlive Tellico. Especially since the 'Con has been under heavy attack for about a decade now. Tellico only came under environmental scrutiny two years ago. Paragon's fight was different, but it was a brief one too.

It has always seemed like the level of activism at the participant level has played a big part in the West. Not having experienced it, maybe there's just as much apathy out there, or some of the awareness is forced through sticker programs, etc. but stuff like tying trash bags to rigs seems to be common culture. Cleanup efforts here in the East are more of the exception than the norm. They are usually just a single day rides organized by individual clubs. Also, the East's terrain can make the battle even harder. "tread lightly" doesn't always come to mind when a higher gear and wheelspeed is needed to climb a sloppy ledge.

So I guess the point is that Ken is right, and in a lot of places, we need to band together more. The land use fight is becoming increasingly harder now that the greenies have nasty precedents like the recent Tellico decision.

[SirFuego]

In the context of paragon, I understand where SB406 is coming from, because it was on private land and there really isn't any activism we could do. The eviction was upheld by a corrupt legal system -- so there is nothing that really can be done until the eviction case gets retried in court.

Since the previous owner died, who legally has the right to the land?

About the only think I could see "us" doing is trying to do is try to convince the current owners to lease it back to Kyle and Steph -- the juvie center and airport both fell through, so they might as well make SOME money. I'm sure that we could provide support for them, but ultimately isn't it their battle?

Or has all this stuff caused some sort of court order preventing the land from getting leased until this whole ordeal has been resolved by the legal system?

[Ken L]

I have shared beers with Del Albright on a couple of occasions. He is passionate about 'wheeling and OHV recreation. If you want to get a Master's Education on how to work to save a trail, read his website. If you ever get the chance to be at an event that he's at, you owe it to yourself to go. He's a BlueRibbon Coalition ambassador and the Rubicon Trail trail boss.

It has been my experience that there are a lot of people in our sport that feel that "someone else will do it" "I don't know how" "it won't matter anyway" "they're all a-holes anyway" "they cant' do that" and the list goes on. The energy that it takes to feel that way could be spent writing a letter to a local legislator, joining Blue Ribbon Coalition or another access group, or working with the Forest Service etc to organize a trail clean up.

The point is, we need to pay it forward or we will lose. And we need to be passionate about our form of recreation and work to make it better. It's not going to happen by itself.

[SB406]

I'm not trying to be a dick... Just trying to spark some conversation....

I agree that what happened is not right and should be fixed. Unfortunately, I don't think it ever will. It would be nice if I am proved wrong.

Tellico and the Rubicon were/are public land. PAP is/was private land, owned by a now dead person, leased by private individuals, who moved to Indiana. All the online petitions in the world can't change those facts.

I think our collective efforts are better placed trying to preserve/ support what we still have in the North East (Rausch Creek, Rock Run, Big Dogs, Harlan, etc...)

[OverkillZJ]

There's no effort here, just hope things work out for the best for once. Nothing wrong with that. It's not like we formed a Coalition hoping Paragon gets their land back, but hey, it'd be nice.