Process Server Faces Gun Threat After Serving Foreclosure Papers

April 29th, 2008

A man aged eighty two was arrested by the sheriff’s deputies in Marion County as he was charged for showing a gun to certain process server when he was given notice for foreclosure. Twenty-four year old Robert McGuiness, who belongs to the Black Diamond Process Service, told the sheriff’s deputy, that on Wednesday he had gone to 3933 N.W. 100^th St. at about 8 p.m. to give court papers to Frank W. Conrad.

According to McGuiness, Conrad was in his pajamas when he answered the door. Apparently he was pretty cordial in the beginning but when McGuiness said that he had foreclosure papers with him, Conrad started shouting. After that he kept on saying that he needed to change his clothes. When he returned after going to change, he had a handgun with him which he pointed at McGuiness and said that either he should leave Conrad’s property in a couple of minutes or he would end up in the hospital.

Then, Conrad’s son aged 61, Frank P. Conrad also demanded to know what McGuiness what doing there. He had placed his hands on his hips which led McGuiness to think that even he had a weapon and as a result he fled. He also said that Conrad’s son told him that he should get away from there or he would be gutted. McGuiness was against reporting this incident at first as he wanted to keep this away from his supervisor. Once the sheriff’s deputies came, Conrad confessed that he had pointed his gun at McGuiness and also brought out his Colt .38 caliber automatic, and proceeded to demonstrate how he had pointed it at McGuiness.

According to the report, Conrad had said that the gun was unloaded. Conrad’s son told the deputies that he had wanted to make McGuiness think that he possessed a weapon. Conrad was charged with aggravated assault using a firearm and arrested. He was placed in the Marion County Jail, and later released with a bail of $7,000. He refused to comment on the story.

Even McGuiness was not available for a comment and Ron Ragle; his boss declared that since an attorney had been hired they couldn’t really discuss any of the specifics. He mentioned that the property was in Pinellas County. He goes on to say that there have been occasions when his employees faced knives and dogs were set on them, but this was the first time a gun had been pulled out when they went to deliver foreclosure papers. Whereas previously they used to serve around 50 papers monthly, now the figure had gone up to 300 papers related to foreclosure.