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959 Tyler Rd.

(Melanie Maxwell | The Ann Arbor News)

An Ypsilanti Township home will be padlocked for nine months after the property was raided twice by the Washtenaw County Sheriff's Department for drug trafficking.

It's the first home in the state to be locked under the new "padlock law" that allows municipalities to ask a judge to declare a home a public nuisance and order it vacated and sealed for up to a year after it's raided twice for drug dealing. Sheriff's Office and township officials lobbied for the law's passage throughout 2014.

Drug houses cause a litany of problems in neighborhoods, said Ypsilanti Township Attorney Doug Winters, and the law gives the township and other municipalities a tool with which it can "reclaim these neighborhoods so people can enjoy their homes."

"The law is effective in every community in which there is a drug problem, and there's no municipality that doesn't have drug problems," Winters said. "You are not going to have a drug house in our community. If we can identify a drug house, then the people who are dealing drugs will not only be prosecuted in the criminal justice system, but on the civil end we will padlock the property.

"It's very upsetting to the neighborhood, and we're having zero tolerance."

According to a verified petition filed in Washtenaw County Circuit Court, neighbors complained to the township about drug trafficking at the house at 959 Tyler Road, weeks after Edward Grubaugh moved in last September. Grubaugh's mother Karen Denike, told township officials she and Gary Schoolmaster, an associate, bought the house for her son.

Township officials supplied neighbors' information to the Sheriff's Office, which, along with Eastern Michigan University and Ypsilanti Police officers, raided the home on Nov. 25.

The complaint states that officers discovered 48 grams of cocaine, a crack pipe, .4 grams of heroin, cash and hypodermic needles. According to court documents, Grubaugh was charged in April with maintaining a drug house and possession of a controlled substance. Frederick Dixon, an associate of Grubaugh, who was living at the house and well-known to police, was charged with possession with intent to deliver.

Following the November raid, Schoolmaster and Denike were sent a letter from Winters stating that the house could be padlocked for a year if drug activity continued at the address. In December, Schoolmaster and Denike met with Mike Radzik, Ypsilanti Township's director of the office of community standards, who advised them that the dealing must stop or the house could be padlocked.

But in February, the home was raided again after a police informant purchased crack there. Police subsequently seized a small amount of cocaine and paraphernalia. The township then charged Grubaugh with running a drug house.

That led the township to ask Washtenaw County Circuit Judge Carol Kuhnke to declare the property a public nuisance and order it padlocked for a year.

Grubaugh and Denike hired Ypsilanti-based criminal defense attorney Michael Vincent, and were able to work out a consent agreement under which the home will only be padlocked for nine months.

The couple had ten days from the date the order was signed, June 2, to winterize the property and remove all their possessions.

"We had given the owners a very detailed letter back in the fall last year putting them on notice that there been a raid at the property and if it happened again we would pursue this remedy," Winters said. "When we say we're going to do something, it's incumbent upon us to follow through."

The Sheriff's Office executed around 65 search warrants related to drugs in the township last year, and the ordinance goes hand-in-hand with another Ypsilanti Township ordinance that would allow the township to charge property owners or drug dealers for the cost of executing a drug raid.

Winters said it isn't uncommon for Sheriff's Office deputies to raid a house more than once, and he added that isn't a problem specific to Ypsilanti Township, which is why officials thought they had a good chance of convincing state lawmakers of the need for the law.

House Bill 5230 passed the Legislature in December and was signed into law by Gov. Rick Snyder. Previously, state law allowed only county prosecutors and the State Attorney General's Office to order a home padlocked.

Winters previously said Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan aggressively used the law when he served as Wayne County's attorney, but added prosecutors' offices face heavy workloads and can't always move quickly to request a house be ordered padlocked.

Municipalities have 30 days from the date of a second raid to ask a Circuit Court judge to declare a house a public nuisance and order it padlocked.

Ypsilanti Township officials say the law won't impact the vast majority of property owners, but it provides a new tool for law enforcement to address several "problem properties" where more than one drug raid occurs.

Late last year, the township began sending letters to owners of property where one drug bust has occurred to inform them that their homes could be padlocked if a second raid occurs at the address.

"It's very disruptive to the neighborhood, and nothing good comes out of having a drug house in the neighborhood," Winters said. "We want to make sure people who are dealing drugs know anyone running a drug house should take notice on what happened here because this may have been the first, but it certainly won't be the last."