CLAY COUNTY, Fla. – A lawyer for Marcellous Dunbar entered a not guilty plea in court Wednesday on charges of burglary and grand theft.
Dunbar covered his head with a T-shirt in September and avoided questions by Channel 4's Jim Piggott about why he was living in an Oakleaf Plantation house that a military family was set to move into.
Investigators, neighbors and the man who bought the house said Dunbar was squatting. Dunbar says he filed paper work for adverse possession, which allows people who pay taxes on abandoned property to take over the property.
"I do believe the media has been unfair throughout this whole ordeal," Dunbar said Wednesday. "My integrity has been questioned. A, Marcellous Dunbar is not a home thief. I can absolutely purchase a property. I am in a position to purchase their property or any property I choose to do so."
Dunbar will have his chance in court to explain why he did not break into the house and followed the law.
"He did not know that the home was sold at the time he had done it," said Reginald Estell Jr., Dunbar's attorney. "No paperwork had been filed. Everything he saw of record was appropriate for him to take the action that he took."
Similar cases of adverse possession continue to grow in northeast Florida. There are now 27 cases alone in Duval County. One of the latest was filed at a house on Cathedral Oaks Place in the San Jose area.
But in a more recent trend, not only are beautiful estates being targeted, but now some older rundown homes like one near EverBank Field are being taken over. In each case Piggott looked into Wednesday, he found paperwork filed, but no one living in the houses.
Duval County property appraiser Jim Overton says it's a new phenomenon for the area. He said the law was never intended to be used like it is now.
"The Legislature needs to go at this and simplify the law and to make sure it does not apply to people squatting in houses," Overton said.