SANTA MONICA (CN) - A homeowner claims the owner of a construction company sandblasted all the stucco off her house without permission, apparently while in a delusional state, before he killed himself.
Joanna Staudinger claims that in early March, Robert Thom, president of Construction Services US, "told her that he had just come into a large sum of money, and that he wanted to use a portion of the money to re-stucco and fix up plaintiff's house so that he could use it an as example of his quality of work."
Staudinger says her home did not need to be re-stuccoed, so she declined - but Thom hired a sandblaster anyway, who blasted the stucco off the whole house.
She says she learned later that Thom "was delusional as the result of an adverse reaction to medications and had not come into a large sum of money and had been telling many people he would do things that he could not do."
Thom's body was found March 16 in a ravine in Malibu Canyon, and "the coroner has declared it was a possible suicide," according to the complaint.
Staudinger seeks damages from Construction Services US and Thom's estate. She is represented in Superior Court by Timothy Hogan.
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