Zagustin Gets Jail Time on Trash Charge

A university professor notorious for her blighted Huntington Harbour home was sentenced Tuesday to 30 days in jail and three years’ probation after pleading guilty to a charge of allowing trash to accumulate in her yard.

Cal State Long Beach professor Elena Zagustin, who was convicted last year in a separate case involving 69 health, safety and building code violations for allowing her house to fall into disrepair, greeted the sentence by Superior Court Judge Michael Beecher with little emotion.

“She’s been punished enough,” her attorney, Anthony Cosio, said. “She’s lost her house. She’s had death threats. This wraps things up, unless there’s another violation.”

In addition to the jail time, scheduled to begin Sept. 8, Zagustin was ordered to pay $100 restitution. She also must submit to quarterly home inspections and could face an additional 30 days in jail if she does not comply.

The sentence is the latest ruling in a decade-long courtroom saga that has cost the city and its residents more than $100,000 in investigation and attorney fees.

Last year’s conviction on the 69 counts led to a three-month jail term for Zagustin that was later reduced to three years’ probation.

Huntington Beach officials, who had brought the original charges against Zagustin in 1996, exulted in the decision.

“We are very encouraged that the judge has taken a firm handle on the situation,” City Atty. Gail Hutton said. “[Beecher has] really come to grips on her continued intransigence and failure to comply with simple, reasonable requests to clean her property.”

Zagustin, 62, a civil engineering professor on sabbatical from her teaching post, has fought a 15-year battle with city officials and neighbors in her upscale waterfront community over the condition of her home.

Neighbors had complained for years that her home was rife with insects, rodents and trash as well as buckets of human waste. The case attracted local and nationwide attention and was featured in two television news programs about feuding neighbors.

It became a national symbol of neighborhood discord, highlighting the delicate balance between a homeowner’s right to privacy and a community’s ability to ensure that homes are clean and safe, according to legal experts.

Even after she was convicted last November of the health, safety and building code violations, Zagustin exhaustively fought off attempts to put her home up for sale. She had forestalled previous sales by filing 10 bankruptcy petitions in the last three years in California, Texas and Nevada.

But last month, her Huntington Harbour home was finally sold at an auction to pay nearly $300,000 in civil judgments from earlier cases won by her neighbors, who argued that the filthy conditions posed a health hazard in the community.

Though city officials are calling Tuesday’s sentencing a “milestone” in the ongoing saga, they said there is no guarantee that Zagustin won’t be back.

“A major chapter is drawing to a close, but this isn’t the end of it,” said Hutton. “We still have her appeals pending on the 69 counts.”