The Right to be Secure in One's House: Manistee's Steven Haugen Dilemma

[XLFD]

Back in 2018, a sexual assault trial took place in Benzie County.  A man named Steven Haugen faced a felony charge of sexual assault with intent to commit sexual penetration and a misdemeanor charge of domestic violence.  Allegedly, his wife had told him that the marriage was over and that she wanted a divorce, he wanted to hold her to her wifely duties one last time.  

In the trial, covered by the Traverse City Record Eagle, the woman testified that he held her down, and bit her as she fought him off.  He seems to have been gratified, as seminal fluids were left behind on her.  Haugen (pictured below) would refuse to testify at trial as per his right, but he had made statements to deputies on the night of the incident which were recorded and played at the trial.

“We tussled on the bed a little.  She just kept saying, ‘no, no, no,’ so I quit.”

“Did I try to have intercourse with her?  Yes I did, she’s my wife.”

The accuser had not only contacted the sheriff but had her injuries looked at by a sexual assault emergency examiner at Munson Medical Center, who interviewed her, collected swabs and took photos.

The jury composed equally of men and women, convicted Mr. Haugen of the domestic violence misdemeanor, but were hung on the felony charge.  The prosecutor would be satisfied with this result.  

Who was Steven Haugen?  He was the head of the Leelanau County Construction Code Authority, and the County of Leelanau's Building Code Offficial, posts where he was suspended from when the credible charges arose, he would later resign-- or retire, as his LinkedIn account says in April 2018.  He reportedly was still able to collect retirement benefits from his job there.

But he did not stay retired.  In January of 2020, he joined up with a municipal service agency named Safebuilt and through them was hired by Manistee.  In the nearly two years he has been employed by the City of Manistee he has oversaw code enforcement.  This entails him interacting with people at, and sometimes inside, their homes.  

The Ludington Torch has previously looked in 2015 at how there have been many instances of unscrupulous building inspectors committing a wide variety of crimes, these included ones of assault and deviant sexual conduct.  While you'll usually find the bad inspectors being charged with fraud or accepting bribes, there are some interesting new crimes over the last six years, like this BI who cold-cocked an elbow into a woman's face at a bar (caught on camera), and this BI that planted video cameras in bathrooms at city hall and the local Starbucks.  

That the City of Manistee would hire a man that went into a woman's home, held her down, and tried to have intercourse with her by force is concerning enough.  But the Ludington Torch has received a credible report from Sara Vadeboncoeur who lives in Manistee city about an incident involving Steven Haugen that concerns her very much, since she is reportedly a survivor of her own rape and domestic violence by her ex-husband. 

Sara's children were at home alone when Mr. Haugen came calling earlier this month.  No appointments had been made, and the children had all been instructed not to answer the door when their mother was away.  They followed that advice and ignored his knocking.  A responsible code enforcement officer would check out on his records that he made a stop at the address for whatever purpose he had, and then move on. 

Steven Haugen wouldn't do that though, instead he reportedly went all around the house looking into windows, many of which were 'frosted' other than the two in Sara's bedroom.  This is illegal activity, even by a code enforcer, and is definitely creepy even when not done by one convicted of a violent sexual assault.   A city code inspector may enter your property only with your permission or a search warrant. Without either, an inspector may only view your property from the street or sidewalk or on his way to knock on your door.

After Haugen went around the house, one of Sara's kids took a photograph of his truck after unfrosting a small part of the window.  The entire incident has left her shaken, in that a long-experienced code enforcement/building inspector would violate the sanctity of her property and make her relive the horrors of her own past.  Haugen would not respond to text messages sent his way.

Sadly, the City of Manistee has a bad history of code enforcement.  Manistee Public Safety Officer Doug Vansickle serving in a new role as code enforcement or as he would put it, 'blight officer', unexpectedly visited Lee Milks in 2017 at just a little after five in the afternoon and would wind up shooting Milks repeatedly after encroaching on his backyard. 

The City and MPD would engage in years of cover-ups trying to justify this unjustifiable murder, now they want to employ a violent sexual offender through a third party company to wander around houses and look through windows in the name of code enforcement.  This incident and any others that come to light regarding Mr. Haugen need to be investigated immediately and if found to be credible, he should be terminated from doing this line of intrusive work that he has only made more intrusive by his unlawful conduct--by once again putting himself in a place he was never invited into.  

[Willy]

This is an interesting topic which brings up a lot of questions, however, I have to disagree with some of your assertions Portraying Mr. Haguan as some sort of sexual criminal as going a little overboard. The man was obviously having trouble in his marriage, whether it was his fault or his wife's is really between them. The fact that she pressed charges shows her animosity towards him. There are plenty of relationships that go beyond holding hands and talking sweetly to each other. After all, he wasn't charged with attempted murder. I'm not saying what he did was OK but as I said we don't really know what was going on between them. He might have been drunk and didn't realize what he was doing. Who knows. Unless he is some kind of criminal and has a record to prove it, then, his marital situation should have no bearing on his current employment.

I agree with you that as a City Official he had no business going on the property without the owner's permission to do so. But I can tell you one thing, anytime  windows are frosted to the extent that they must be scraped does reveal that there could be some potential environmental problems in the house. Any thing from a defective furnace, water heater, chimney, standing sewage water in the  basement or even a corpse. He may have assumed that and that is why he was snooping around the house. I don't think it's fair to make this guy out to be some kind of predator.

[XLFD]

Mr. Haugen did get a jury trial and was not acquitted of either charge against him, so considering that he had the opportunity and means to get himself a good defense, I would consider the decision made by that jury of his peers to mean that they believed something nefarious had happened, especially since the DV charge stuck, which required the prosecutor to show an assault had happened.  Ten of those jurors gave him the benefit that it wasn't a full sexual assault.  

If the local government utilizes someone to enforce their codes, and it's unclear whether they use this person for doing rental inspections, anybody with experience should know the limits fo what they can do and their duty to respect a person's rights.  This guy has plenty of experience, a violent past where (if we view the trial as a fair measure of truth) he held a woman down against her will and forced himself upon her, so why keep him out in the field where people are effectively forced to deal with him, and people like Sara have to live in fear-- because her property has already been violated just like the former Mrs. Haugen.

[Renee Wyler]

I know this man.  He was instrumental in assisting me with uncovering title fraud/recordation fraud in Leelanau County.  In fact, he was the ONLY County official who would even recognize the fraud in our county  land records.  So before you go about the business of "Cancelling" out this man for a Misdemeanor, involving a domestic issues "judge not, less thou be judged".  "Snooping around the house" involving a home with children that has "frosted windows" is going OVERBOARD.  With his background in building codes he, in my opinion, had a DUTY to investigate the environment that those children were left in without parental supervision.  This is what is wrong with out country.  I had an ex husband who was physically and mentally abusive.  I left him.  Had I pursued a prosecution against him, my children would be visiting him in prison for YEARS. I object to the fact that you disparage this man using your own personal history to equate him as a Predator or Abuser like your ex.  Very unfair.

[XLFD]

Nobody was cancelling out Mr. Haugen for being convicted of a violent misdemeanor in his past, we were questioning the sagacity of the City of Manistee hiring him, perhaps unknowingly of his past, and allowing him to violate the sanctities of people's homes as a sanctioned building/rental inspector.  Mr. Haugen was contacted by the victim of his unlawful home inspection wondering why he was going around her home trying to look into her windows, he never replied. 

Recall there was not an appointment for him to drop by the house, so if he suspected there was an unsafe 'home-alone' situation (without good evidence that there was) he could have always gave the Manistee PD a call with his concerns, rather than forego all of his training, experience, and the homeowner's basic rights of privacy, and conduct illegal surveillance.  His criminal history at that point needs to be considered, more than one incident in his past when he allegedly helped uncover title fraud-- as part of the normal, expected duties of his job.  Fair enough?