Actor Randy Quaid and his wife, Evi, were arrested on felony burglary charges Saturday after Santa Barbara County sheriff’s deputies responded to reports of squatters living in a Montecito home.
Sheriff’s Department spokesman Drew Sugars said a representative of the property’s owner called authorities Saturday afternoon to report that someone had been living there illegally. According to Sugars, the representative had gone to the residence in the 1300 block of East Mountain Drive to check on a security alarm that had gone off earlier Saturday and discovered that someone had been living in the guest house. A sheriff’s deputy met the representative at the property about 2:15 p.m., but the intruders were not there.
About 6:15 p.m., the property’s representative called authorities to report that the trespassers had returned. When deputies arrived, Sugars said, they found the Quaids, who insisted they had owned the property since the 1990s.
Sugars said the property’s representative was able to provide documentation that his client had purchased the property in 2007 from a man who had bought it from the Quaids several years earlier. A contractor who had done work on the property pointed out to deputies more than $5,000 in damages to the guest house that he believed was caused by the Quaids, Sugars said. The property’s representative signed a complaint for a citizen’s arrest, which prompted deputies to take the Quaids into custody on residential burglary charges.
Quaid was handcuffed without incident, but deputies where forced to restrain Evi Quaid, who physically resisted arrest.
Quaid, 59, and Evi Quaid, 47, were booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail on Saturday night on charges of felony residential burglary and misdemeanor entering a noncommercial building without consent. Evi Quaid was also booked for misdemeanor resisting arrest. The Quaids each posted $50,000 bail and were released Sunday morning.
The Quaids are due back in court on Oct. 18, although that is subject to change.
Early Sunday, it was not clear how long the guest house had been in use. The property, near Oak Creek Canyon Road, is screened from the street by trees, hedges, and a stone wall with wood-plank gates. A carport area is piled high with boxes and household items. Inside the wall, a black mailbox adorned with large “RQ” initials sits on the ground by the driveway. A store-bought No Trespassing sign is leaning against it.
The house is less than a mile from the San Ysidro Ranch, where the Quaids allegedly used an invalid credit card to pay a $10,000 hotel bill in 2009. Earlier this year, the couple settled legal charges related to the incident.
Evi Quaid pleaded no contest to defrauding an innkeeper, was fined $10,500 in restitution, and was ordered to perform 240 hours of community service and to stay away from two Montecito hotels. The charges against her husband were dropped.
— Noozhawk publisher Bill Macfadyen can be reached at wmacfadyen@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk.