Body cam video shows police surrounding home of Millennia CEO
Nov 01, 2024
It’s just after 7 a.m. and still dark out, but you can see bright, flashing lights from several police cruisers lining a long driveway at a home in Waite’s Hill, Ohio, roughly 30 minutes outside Cleveland.
Body camera video obtained by the WREG Investigators shows a police officer from the Willoughby Hills Police Department making his way up to the home of Millennia Companies CEO Frank Sinito.
PREVIOUS STORY: Feds raid home of Millennia CEO linked to Serenity Towers
The officer from Willoughby Hills, along with law enforcement from two other local departments assisted agents from the HUD Office of Inspector General and USDA Office of Inspector General who were executing a search warrant at Sinito's home on Wednesday, Oct. 23.
Law enforcement officers closer to the home could be seen and heard speaking with a woman outside the home.
One officer asks, "So they’re out of town?"
The woman replies, "Yes, I believe they’re in the house in Florida."
The police chief of Waite’s Hill, Ohio, whose officers also assisted in the raid, previously told WREG the Sinitos weren't at home at the time of the raid.
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Law enforcement blasts out a message: "This is the police, we have a search warrant. Come out with your hands up if you’re inside the residence!" The command is repeated over and over.
At one point, the officer who is behind the body camera gets in his car and drives closer to the home. He walks through to another area of the property where he speaks with other officers who said that area appeared to be the way out.The officer wearing the body camera asks, "See any jets?" Officers then use their flashlights to peek through one of the empty garages.
As the sun starts to come up, the body camera reveals a clearer view of the scope of the raid and the property itself.
It's a nearly $4 million mansion owned by a man that heads up a company in charge of a taxpayer-funded property in Memphis that was just deemed to be a “menace to public health, welfare or safety," or a chronic nuisance, because of all the code violations and problems that piled up. Those included bed bugs, non-working elevators and HVAC problems.
At one point in the video, an agent wearing a vest that read USDA-OIG POLICE signals to other officers they’re getting closer to starting.
He tells the local police, “We’re doing the last clearing of the stairwell and elevator shaft."
Another federal agent could be seen speaking to the same woman seen earlier who then proceeds to explains the layout of the home and how to access the elevator.
A federal agent asks, "So is there an alternative way to up there?"
The woman replied, "No." She continued, "If you’re in the elevator, you should hit the button and the accordion door closes. You close the big doors and then the accordion door closes by itself.
"Be careful, because someone did get stuck up there,” the woman warns them.
Being stuck on elevators is something Sinito and Millennia are familiar with, as it’s happened several times at Serenity Towers.
WREG uncovered records and audio revealing seniors and disabled residents trapped on the elevators and forced to call 911 for help.
In fact, a week after agents raided Sinito’s more than 17,000-square-foot home that includes that elevator, multiple patios and a pool and sits on just a portion of a sprawling 30 acres, attorneys representing Serenity Towers and the city were back in Shelby County Environmental Court.
A Memphis Fire official explained one of the towers had no working elevators at one point recently. However, workers made a repair while the firefighters were on site.
Special Master Marcus Ward, a court appointed attorney working as a neutral party to get the issues fixed explained how that was another drain on taxpayer resources.
“It jams up the system for the fire department trying to respond to other things,” Ward told the judge.
A federal judge issued an order sealing the search warrant.
Parties for Millennia, Serenity and the city are due back in Shelby County Environmental Court later this month for another hearing on the chronic nuisance order.