The city Finance Department is still working out plans to deal with former homeowners who have claims, but the Sheriff's Office says it will handle telephone inquiries and visits from people who may be owed money.
In addition, $7.8 million from sheriff sales before 2002 is still unaccounted for, with no clear records on whom it should belong to. The money will eventually go to the state unless former property owners can provide proof they're owed some piece of it.
Independently, several private lawyers have started a class action in Common Pleas Court, suing the city and the Sheriff's Office on behalf of people owed money from sheriff sales dating to 1988, when John Green became sheriff.
Deputy Sheriff Joseph C. Vignola dismissed the class action as "just a money grab for attorneys' fees." State Treasurer Rob McCord intervened in the case, contending that the lawyers were trying to usurp the role of the Treasurer's Office in dealing with abandoned property.
But the lawsuit wouldn't have been necessary if the sheriff and state treasurer had been more vigilant, said Christy Adams, one of the lawyers who filed the suit.
"If the Sheriff's Office did not mishandle my clients' money, refuse to distribute what was rightfully owed to them, and charge excess fees to personally enrich an unauthorized contractor [referring to allegations by City Controller Alan Butkovitz], then they would not have to hire an attorney, and this lawsuit would not exist," Adams said.
Many people were never informed they were owed money, Adams said.
"Some went to the Sheriff's Office and asked, but they never got the information," she said. "People told them the paperwork was lost, or they should come back later. So the money just piled up in the sheriff's accounts."
