05:29 PM PDT on Thursday, June 3, 2004

By ANTONIA GIEDWOYN, kgw.com Staff

BEAVERTON -- A highly-decorated war hero and his wife, who were swindled out of more than $80,000 by their accountant and evicted from their Beaverton home, are now in jail after being arrested for trespassing.

Ken Reusser. (KGW Photo)

Ken and Trudy Reusser were forced out of their home by Washington County Sheriff's deputies in March, the couple said. The deputies removed the couple because the pair was unable to pay the mortgage for the home, which sits on land once owned by Ken Reusser's grandfather.

Now the Reussers are in Washington County Jail in Hillsboro after apparently trying to re-enter their $1 million former home, the sheriff's office said Thursday.

“A few weeks ago, attorneys for Washington Mutual Bank filed a criminal complaint with The Washington County Sheriff’s Office for Criminal Trespass in the first degree against the Reussers,” said sheriff's office spokesman Rick Lamanna.

On May 24, when the initial trespassing complaint was received by the sheriff’s office, Lamana said sheriff’s deputies notified the Ruessers’ attorney about the complaint and that an arrest warrant was likely to be issued.

On Thursday, deputies took the Ruessers into custody after a judge issued the warrant.

“There is every reason to believe that they will be released in a fairly short time period once they have been processed through booking,” Lamanna said.

Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor under Oregon law.

Trudy, 65, and Ken, 84, a retired Marine Corps pilot who was awarded the Purple Heart five times and the Navy Cross twice, said they trusted Robert E. Thomas, their accountant, to care for their finances. Instead, he took checks from their checkbook, wrote them to himself and deposited them in his accounts.

Robert E. Thomas. (KGW Photo)

Thomas was sentenced in May 2003 to a year in jail. He pleaded guilty to four counts of first-degree aggravated theft and one count of first-degree forgery exceeding $10,000.

The couple filed a civil lawsuit against Thomas and Washington Mutual, which the couple said made it easy for Thomas to forge the checks.

The Reussers tried to recover their money from the bank, but because they missed a 30-day deadline to file the complaint, Washington Mutual officials said they could not help.

The Reussers said they tried to sell the home, but Washington Mutual told them if they did not drop the lawsuit against the bank, it would block the sale.

The couple said they owed about $800,000 on the house to Washington Mutual Bank.

However, according to Libby Hutchinson, public relations manager for Washington Mutual, the amount owed by the couple is actually $991,000.

"While the circumstances of this situation are unfortunate, Washington Mutual has made many attempts to resolve this matter in good faith, including a recent offer for the borrowers to repurchase the property at a significant discount," Hutchinson said.

"The borrowers have refused our proposals and have offered no alternative proposals, leaving us few options. We even offered to rent the property to the borrowers so that they could legally reside in the home while we continued to work toward a permanent resolution. Again, the borrowers refused our offer."

Hutchinson said that in addition to working with the Reussers’ attorney, bank officials solicited the assistance of community leaders, affordable housing advocates and other third parties who they hoped could help mediate a solution, but none of the people they contacted were able to work out an acceptable deal.

(The Associated Press contributed background to this story.)