By Camille T. Taiara

East Bay punk Steven DeCaprio has been spending an abnormal amount of time in a suit and tie lately. But DeCaprio isn't "selling out" to a more mainstream lifestyle. Quite the opposite: his sporadic makeovers are a consequence of time spent in court trying to seize legal ownership of a house that sat abandoned for 16 years – until he and a motley crew of friends took it over, in March 2004, with dreams of transforming it into a collective.

Now, DeCaprio – who's been acting as his own lawyer – could soon be trading in that suit and tie for an orange jumpsuit. The city of Berkeley, in turn, faces a federal Civil Rights Act lawsuit.

The case strikes at the core of one of this country's most safeguarded values: the sanctity of private property.

It also raises an increasingly salient question: for how long should unused property be allowed to remain idle when so many are in need of a home?

DeCaprio, a 32-year-old drummer who gets by doing odd jobs, was inspired by the vibrant squatters' movements he'd come across while touring Europe five years ago. Back in the East Bay, he wound up paying $400 a month to sleep in a hallway leading to the bathroom, and then got evicted.

"It seemed insane that people hand over the lion's share of their income for rent," he said.

So he took to riding around town on his bike, looking for abandoned buildings. After he found one he liked, at 1634 62nd St., he conducted a little detective work.

"For this house and a handful of others we'd found, there was no explanation for why they weren't being used," he recalled.

Staffers at the Alameda County Assessor's Office told him the owners were probably dead. Neighbors confirmed this.

So DeCaprio paid 2004 property taxes on the place and filed a homestead declaration. The plan was to claim ownership via "adverse possession," a controversial law dating back to the 1800s through which individuals can hypothetically gain full, legal ownership of an abandoned property so long as they pay the property taxes on it and occupy it openly and continuously for five years.

"We went in and started cleaning it up," DeCaprio told the Bay Guardian. "There was a calendar on the wall that said 1988."

At least 10 people helped fix up the place. They replaced the plumbing coming into the house with new copper pipes. They replaced broken windows. They cleaned up and weeded the yard in the hopes of beginning a community garden. The kitchen was to be used by Food Not Bombs to prepare meals for the homeless.

"I've spent easily $3,000 on just supplies, probably more," DeCaprio said.

Complaints from neighbors brought down the cops on DeCaprio and his friends less than two months after he moved in.

The district attorney refused to pursue an unlawful-entry charge filed against DeCaprio when police arrested him and searched the house, on July 27. On Jan. 12 the Alameda County Superior Court dismissed two subsequent trespassing charges against him.

"The police are only supposed to enforce trespass laws when they actually see the trespass take place or when they receive a complaint from someone who has title to the property," Ted Gullicksen, of the San Francisco Tenants Union, told us.

Gullicksen participated in a similar building takeover with Homes Not Jails in San Francisco in 1993. They won a $30,000 settlement for wrongful arrest after arguing that the city had initiated the campaign to remove them from the property when there was a legitimate dispute about who actually owned the building.

Gullicksen believes it was inappropriate for Berkeley to initiate a criminal case against DeCaprio before the question of who holds title to the property is actually settled.

DeCaprio filed suit against the city in August 2004, arguing that title to the property was unclear – and charging the city with unreasonable search and seizure, denial of due process, and denial of equal protection under the law.

But then an owner of the property turned up. Aging and elusive, Doris J. Anderson is the sole surviving child of George and Essie Thomas, a working-class, African American couple who'd last owned the 62nd Street house and raised their family there. Mr. Thomas died in 1981. Mrs. Thomas passed away in 1988; her will simply left their estate to their three children.

Anderson, who owns other properties, paid taxes on the place but never bothered to initiate probate, the legal process by which a deceased person's estate is divvied up – that is, until pressure mounted as a result of DeCaprio's takeover attempt.

"When people don't need to do something, they tend to put it off," explained Christopher Knepshield, who filed a probate application on Anderson's behalf Sept. 27. Two months later, Alameda County granted Anderson the power to administer the property while her parents' estate goes through probate. (Two other heirs – both nephews of Anderson's – also stand to inherit shares of the Thomas estate.)

Police have visited the house numerous times since then. On March 1, 2005, they arrived with guns drawn and kicked DeCaprio and a second person out. It was the seventh time the police had removed DeCaprio from the house, and the third time they had arrested him. DeCaprio is now under orders to stay away from the property.

On May 10 a jury found DeCaprio guilty of three counts of unlawful entry but acquitted him of three trespass charges; he is now awaiting sentencing. The D.A. has asked that he be sentenced to four months in jail and three years' probation.

Judge Claudia Wilken is reviewing DeCaprio's federal case against Berkeley and plans to rule soon based on court filings.

"Something they don't realize is that whether I win or lose, I've resolved the problem," DeCaprio said.

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