Kip Macy: "The point was to get it red tagged because we basically lost all other options for recovering the property."
Dan Noyes: "So, you were trying to get the building red tagged, to actually be able to take control of the building?"
Kip Macy: "That's correct. Which is, which is obviously not a nice thing to do."
Macy told the I-Team he was ready to walk away from the project, but his wife was too emotionally invested. So, they waged a campaign of harassment.
Prosecutors say the couple changed locks repeatedly; cut telephone lines, shut off gas; sawed through floors; doused beds, clothing and electronics with ammonia; directed workers to cut support beams under the building; and threatened the tenants.
Kip Macy: "I made some jokes about their safety and joking around. I don't remember what I said, but I mean--."
Dan Noyes: "Was it meant as a joke or were you actually trying to get them to feel pressure?"
Kip Macy: "Well, given the amount of cleverness that I felt in writing it, it was more of a, more of a, it was sort of 50/50."
In April 2008, prosecutors charged Kip and Nicole Macy with residential burglary, felony stalking, conspiracy, vandalism and more. His parents posted $500,000 to bail the couple out of jail. They went to court, but it didn't go well.
Dan Noyes: "Tell me about that decision, 'OK, it's going so badly that I've got to take off.'"
Kip Macy: "That's was it, basically we freaked out in response to the, to the judge exploding."
Kip and Nicole Macy went on the run, landing in Italy. His parents had to forfeit the $500,000 bond. The checks were cut last week to San Francisco Superior Court.
Dan Noyes: "You understand the pressure that your parents are under now having to write that check. Does that make you--"
Kip Macy: "Yeah, yeah, I'm well aware of that. I mean--"
Dan Noyes: "Does that make you feel bad?"
Kip Macy: "Yes, yes, certainly."
Dan Noyes: "How important was that $500,000?"
Marie Macy: "It was the whole cushion. It was the whole cushion."
Dan Noyes: "All your savings?"
Marie Macy: "Yeah, yeah."
Kip Macy's mother tells the I-Team she's not angry at her son -- that it's just sad and pathetic. She has the strongest words for the San Francisco District Attorney's Office.
Marie Macy says, "My son is just a person with problems. The D.A. is a person with power, who has misused his power."
She says the district attorney refused to extradite her son and daughter-in-law from Italy, so she could keep her $500,000.
"We followed them all the way through Florence," says the Macy's bail bond agent Geri Campana
Campana found them in Italy, but could not have them arrested because the D-A had not filled out what's called an "Interpol red notice" -- alerting Italian authorities that Kip and Nicole were fugitives.
"I did call the D.A.'s office and I told them, 'We have them in our custody. Can you please issue the red notice, immediately?' They said they were not interested in extraditing. Too costly," according to Campana.
Campana tried it a second time -- returning to Italy -- but again, the district attorney declined to extradite the couple. Only after it was too late for Marie Macy to keep her $500,000 did the district attorney decide to have Kip and Nicole Macy arrested and extradited.
"These are the people who are people upholding the law. These are supposed to be the people defending me. And they have robbed me," says Marie Macy.
Lawyers for the Macy's took the issue to court, lost ... appealed, and lost again. The court found, in essence, that the district attorney's office can change its mind at any time.
A spokesman for District Attorney George Gascon said no one from the office would be interviewed about the case but provided a statement that reads in part: "The reason bail was forfeited in this case was because the defendants fled."
"It was all about the money," according the Marie Macy.
Kip and Nicole Macy agreed to a plea deal of "four years, four months" in state prison. If a judge approves it next month, they could be out in a year, with time served. Kip plans on spending his 6-month parole living with his parents, and returning to work as a software developer to pay them back.
Kip Macy: "I always planned on making good on it in one way or another. Basically paying it back."
Dan Noyes: "And you still plan on that?"
Kip Macy: "Yes, of course. I mean, that's sort of fundamental now."
Marie Macy is 67-years-old and had planned to retire by now, but she has to keep working as a nurse at the Menlo Park V-A after losing her life savings. She tells me she can't go see her son in jail -- it's too painful, and her husband's health is failing because of the stress.
