BOISE, Idaho — A former property manager in Meridian was ordered Wednesday to serve at least a year in jail and pay back tens of thousands of dollars he stole from clients.
Brandon Curtiss, 45, the former president of the militia group 3% of Idaho, was sentenced Wednesday at the Ada County Courthouse, as first reported by the Idaho Statesman.
For years, Curtiss used his company, Curtiss Property Management, to steal thousands of dollars from his clients and customers. At least three victims at Wednesday’s hearing said they hired Curtiss to manage their properties, but that he then pocketed tenant payments, leaving the case’s victims to scrounge for monthly mortgage payments.
Some of his victims said they worried the sentence was too light and wouldn't send a strong enough message.
“Please don’t give him and others the assurance that Idaho is an easy con, and that they can get away with crimes like this,” Leslie Boyce urged 4th District Court Judge Peter Barton in her testimony Wednesday. “Please reject this agreement.”
In addition to the 364 days in jail, Barton sentenced Curtiss to 14 years of probation.
Curtiss was charged in February of 2019 with 19 counts of grand theft for business practices dating back to April 2016. In November, he pleaded guilty to a single count of grand theft, and prosecutors agreed to dismiss the other 18 counts.
Prosecutors say Curtiss stole $109,000 from his victims. The expert hired by Curtiss’ attorneys estimated the number was closer to $49,000. Another hearing is scheduled for March to determine how much he will pay.
Boyce explained on Wednesday that in 2013, she hired Curtiss to manage two fourplexes she owns. A few months after that, he stopped paying her and her husband the rental income he owed them.
Daysha Zuber has a similar experience when she hired Curtiss to manage a property for her, also in 2013. In 2016, he stopped paying her rent money from tenants, and as a result, she missed three months of mortgage payments. It damaged her credit score, she said.
Nicole Kindall, whose husband and mother-in-law, hired Curtiss to manage a Nampa property, also said Curtiss withheld a payment from them in September 2015. When Kindall was finally able to speak to Curtiss on the phone about it, he told her he knew where she lived, and had a “network” of people who could “take you down.”
Eventually, the Boyces sued Curtiss in 2013, which became a two-year court battle. A judge, in that case, awarded the Boyces $70,000 and ordered Curtiss to pay attorney fees. She said he hasn’t paid her, and she doesn’t think he will.
“I am not holding my breath for any of my money, and neither are any of the other victims he has ripped off,” she said.
She and Zuber both urged Barton to reject the plea agreement.
“I realize this is an information-heavy case, and that the current prosecutors in Ada County are busy,” Boyce said. “It would require serious time and expense to take to trial. But the bottom line is that Brandon Curtiss has a long history of theft. And if he walks away with one out of 19 counts of grand felony theft and only probation — a small slap on the wrist — evil wins. Crime wins.”
Michael Guy, the case’s prosecutor, said he felt the plea agreement was fair, although he said he agreed with the case’s victims that Curtiss was lying when he said he simply made “bookkeeping errors.”
“He might be right that he has never taken a formal paycheck from his business,” Guy said. “He didn’t need to. He simply used his clients’ funds for his daily life expenses.”
Guy said the sentence would deter Curtiss from committing theft in the future, something both Boyd and Zuber disagreed with. Guy, however, reminded the judge that a condition of Curtiss’ probation would be to pay restitution to his victims. It means Curtiss could go to prison for up to 13 years if he doesn’t make payments.
Curtiss himself was brief when he spoke to the court.
“I made some mistakes as a business owner, ones I’m not proud of, mistakes that I know have hurt people,” he said. “I have taken steps to rectify those to learn how to do proper bookkeeping.”
Ultimately, Barton sentenced Curtiss to 14 years in prison, but suspended it in favor of probation. He did, however, order Curtiss to serve a year in jail, and also ordered him to inform any future employers of the conviction. Curtiss is prohibited from working in a career where he would have control of client or customer funds, and he also must submit a monthly budget to his probation officer at the start of each month.
“I realize some of you will walk out of here unhappy with what I’ve done, unhappy with what the Ada County prosecutors have done, and I can’t fix that,” Barton told the courtroom. “I can only say I have striven to be fair and just, I have striven to calibrate what I’ve done against what other judges do, what I do, and the facts of a specific case.”
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