Hubbard city officials and law enforcement people have claimed to not know why the horn-blowing that has terrorized Rick and Lucinda Krlich began. But Rick Krlich says he knows – he says it’s obvious.
First, there’s the fact that the first incident happened on the night of the very same day that John Clemente Jr. told him “We’ll be enemies for life” because Krlich refused to withdraw a bid for the home that Clemente’s aunt had lived in before she entered a nursing home. Under state law, that home should have been seized to compensate the state for her care; despite Krlich’s attempt to offer much more for the property, the courts awarded it to Clemente for a much lower sum than the law required.
Then, there are the connections between the Clemente family and a large number of citizens who have been charged and/or found guilty of violating the city’s horn-honking ordinance:
- John Clemente Jr. and his wife, Marlene, have as friends Chip Silvidi, Jim Wynn, Beede Chick, Jimmy LaCivita, and City Council President Bill Williams and his wife, Janet. Silvidi, Wynn, and Williams have all been caught on Krlich’s surveillance equipment with their car horns blowing; Chick and Janet Williams worked at Marlene Clemente’s downtown Hubbard restaurant.
- The Clementes’ daughter, Chris, claims as friends Scott Walker, who blew his horn in front of Krlich’s house as he was pulling into the Clementes’ driveway, then threatened to beat up Krlich; Randy Daniels, and Bill Patrick, both of whom have been captured on Krlich’s surveillance equipment.
- Son Mike Clemente’s friends who have been observed blowing a car horn include Eric Sijh, a firefighter from Remindersville, Ohio; Ed Palestro III, against whom a Civil Protection Order was served; Miles Williams, whose car horn doesn’t work so he races the engine instead when in front of the Krlich home, and Clemente’s girlfriend, Nicole Shimensky.
- Son Jared Clemente’s friends Joe Marando, Joe Takash, Nick Bruce and Josh Wilson are all on the tapes – and Wilson told investigators he blew his horns “because Jared told me to.”
All of it, Krlich says, is because the family is still angry that he tried to exercise his rights to buy a home that, by rights, should have been sold at public auction, through a realtor, to satisfy the family’s debts to the state. “Nobody is protecting the taxpayer in this thing,” he says.
View more than 100 pages of police reports and court documents related to the activities of Clemente family members and their friends.