He responded that the issue was never the roof, listing instead:
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The $1.49 million stolen.
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The fabricated records and forged signatures.
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The phantom contracts.
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The deliberate property destruction.
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The scheme to sell his home without notice.
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The deliberate fire in the server room.
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The coercion used to force a homeowner to sign fake debt.
Residents voted overwhelmingly to remove the entire board. Marlene claimed the vote was invalid because only the board itself could call such a meeting, but Tessa held up the original declarations and read aloud the clause allowing homeowners to convene independently once more than a third of the board faced active criminal investigation. The final vote came in at 57 to 5 in favor of removal, and the entire board was formally ousted that night.
Immediately afterward, Nolan arrested Denise for perjury and destruction of evidence. As she was led away, she turned toward Marlene and shouted that Marlene had promised their homes would never be touched. Vaughn looked at Marlene and told her simply that she had lied.
In the days that followed, the once-united board began turning on each other with a speed that surprised even the investigators handling the case:
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Denise was the first to fully cooperate with prosecutors, handing over account passwords, explaining exactly how Marlene had controlled every financial system, and describing meetings held in Marlene's kitchen where the group had walked through each transfer line by line before it was ever entered into the official books.
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Pamela insisted she had only signed contracts under direct instruction, sobbing through most of her interview and claiming she had never fully understood what the money was being used for.
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Rochelle claimed the falsified minutes had been dictated to her word for word by Marlene herself, producing old text messages where Marlene had told her exactly which names to add to the attendance list.
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Judith continued to argue that her property purchases were legitimate investments, refusing to back down even as the evidence against her mounted.
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Marlene alone maintained that every decision had been made purely to protect neighborhood property values, repeating that line to investigators, to reporters, and eventually to herself, as though saying it often enough might make it true.
But data pulled from the recovered server told a different story, revealing a spreadsheet titled Project Alder Acquisition Timeline, laying out the entire operation step-by-step: from the date the assessment would be sent, to the lien filing, the roof demolition, the uninhabitable declaration, the internal sale, the eventual demolition of the house itself, and finally the opening of commercial access through the old service road. In one email, Judith asked what would happen if Vaughn tried to sue, and Marlene answered that by the time he ever found a judge willing to hear him, the house would no longer exist.
Tessa used that email to push for punitive damages. The initial damage report included: