'Life Is Not The Same': Greenwood Village Doesn't Owe Leo Lech Anything, Court Ruling Says
GREENWOOD VILLAGE, Colo. (CBS4) - Leo Lech was once again defeated, as the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said the City of Greenwood Village doesn't owe him anything after a SWAT incident destroyed his home in 2015.
"What I've learned is that we have no rights. What I've learned is that they can come and blow up my house and throw me out in the street and say see you later, deal with it," Lech said.
The Greenwood Village homeowner has been on a four year crusade to seek the only thing he's ever wanted, fair market value. The city offered $5,000 to cover the home insurance deductible, but Lech declined the offer.
"Our lives will never be the same, and just the sheer point that this was done to us by people we pay taxes to, this was done deliberately," Lech said. "You can't blow up somebody's home, throw a family out into the street homeless by a government agency in any kind of civilized society."
The city says the court rulings have proven that life is valued over property during police incidents.
The court ruling said Lech wasn't entitled to anything. His last appeal is to the United States Supreme Court, but what Lech really thinks is necessary is a new law to protect people from military-force by police.
"There needs to be new legislation, there needs to be new laws on the books to cover this," said Lech. "Other families are going to suffer the same fate, the same nightmare that we did, guaranteed."
Greenwood Village responded to the case on Wednesday with a lengthy statement emphasizing the serious nature of the original pursuit of a suspect that randomly ended in Lech's house.
The city then went on to criticize Lech for using more than the $345,000 in insurance money he received to rebuild on the lot.
"Which he apparently used to build a much larger and more expensive home," the town statement said.
"I had to build a home to today's codes that I could sell. I'm not going to sell a 1970s retro style house," Lech said. "Right now I've got these loans that I've had to take to rebuild a house. That probably set me back about three to four years to retirement. So no, life is not the same, it will actually never be the same."
