State says former Regency Mobile Home Park manager being uncooperative

The Iowa Attorney General's Office is seeking a court order requiring a former manager of Regency Mobile Home Park to cooperate with its investigation of the troubled park.

In a filing Monday in Polk County District Court, the state asked that Tina Stroud of Iowa City appear at the Attorney General's Office to provide testimony and documents. A hearing on the request is set for Nov. 5.

The Attorney General's Office and Johnson County Sheriff's Office are investigating claims that Regency, located just south of Iowa City, has sold mobile homes without clear titles and without making buyers aware that back taxes are owed. Regency's corporate owner is Colorado-based Churchill Group.

At a public meeting in July, Stroud, a former manager of the park, said she had first-hand knowledge and documentation of misconduct allegedly committed by Regency, which she said she'd give to the Attorney General's Office, according to the state.

In August, the Attorney General's Office received a consumer complaint from a woman who said Stroud, acting as an independent seller, sold her a home at Regency and then changed the terms of the transaction after the woman surrendered her original home to Stroud and moved her family into the new home, the state said.

Between mid-July and mid-September, Stroud refused to produce the documents as promised. The state got a subpoena ordering her to appear at the Attorney General's Office in Des Moines, but Stroud rescheduled the meeting twice, saying first her child was sick and then she was sick, according to the state.

Stroud also asked that she be reimbursed for her travel expenses, something an assistant attorney general arranged for. Stroud still failed to show up for a rescheduled meeting Oct. 5.

She sent an e-mail message, which is included in the court filing, one minute before the meeting was to start suggesting she wanted the travel reimbursement before she appeared. She wrote that money was “VERY tight” for her at the moment and she needed the gas in her car to get her child to and from school. She asked if the meeting could be held in Iowa City.

Stroud did not immediately return a message seeking comment Monday.

Geoff Greenwood, spokesman for the Attorney General's Office, said his office offered to pay Stroud's travel expenses, something it typically does not do, so having her come to Des Moines should not have been an issue.