Irma went easy on Keys man’s trailer, so his landlord finished it off, investigators say

A Marathon mobile home park owner was locked up Thursday after State Attorney’s Office investigators say he unlawfully damaged and ransacked a tenant’s trailer in the weeks following September’s Hurricane Irma in an effort to render the dwelling unlivable in the eyes of city officials.

Ralph Mutchnik, 72, was booked on three felonies Thursday after being arrested at Galway Bay. He’s accused of intentionally destroying a 34-foot trailer belonging to tenant Andrew Garshott and taking his possessions, including thousands of dollars in cash, according to an affidavit filed by State Attorney’s Office investigators this week.

“It’s about time,” Garshott told the Keynoter. “He makes life miserable for 95 percent of the people in that park and thinks he can do what he wants with anyone’s property. He has no regard for anybody.”

Mutchnik owns the mobile home park at mile marker 47.5 oceanside. About two weeks after Category 4 Hurricane Irma left behind widespread devastation in the Keys on Sept. 10, Mutchnik reportedly had an excavator punch two large holes into the roof of Garshott’s 34-foot Prowler, according to the arrest affidavit.

Garshott, who was in Michigan at the time, told investigators Mutchnik broke into his trailer on or around Sept. 26 and stole cash, impact windows and sliding doors and then destroyed the trailer, according to the affidavit. Garshott told the Keynoter in October he had about $6,000 in cash in the trailer at the time it was destroyed.

Garshott was called by his neighbor Steve Brodeu, who stayed in Marathon for the hurricane and took photos of Garshott’s trailer in the aftermath, when Mutchnik reportedly crushed the trailer and had it removed from the lot. Brodeu’s photos showed the trailer had no significant damage from the storm, according to the affidavit, but the roof holes made it deemed “unsafe” by city building inspectors.

Mutchnik reportedly told Monroe County Sheriff’s Office detectives that Garshott was supposed to pay lot rent in July 2017 in the amount of $11,400 but never did. Instead of evicting Garshott, Mutchnik placed a warehouse lien on the trailer and further destroyed it, the affidavit says. Paperwork about the lien went to the former owners of the trailer because Garshott reportedly never registered it.

The entire warehouse lien process took place while Garshott was in Michigan and he never received any notification about it, the arrest document states. Whether he paid the rent is unclear in the affidavit.

Mutchnik faces felony charges of criminal mischief, grand theft over $20,000 and filing of false documents against real or personal property. He was taken to the Stock Island jail without bond.

Galway Bay does not have a website, but is described on its Facebook page as a 55-and-over mobile home community.

This story was originally published January 11, 2018 at 6:46 PM with the headline "Irma went easy on Keys man’s trailer, so his landlord finished it off, investigators say."