Hampton - The five-bedroom home on Haywagon Trail is listed for $645,000 by the builder, the Kecoughtan Company.
A religious group, the Moorish Science Temple of America, disagrees. The temple claims ownership of the land on which the home was built, and its spokesman says the real estate developer had no legal right to remove the furniture that the religious group had moved into the unoccupied home.
Sheik Dr. P. Vernon Crowell-Bey, speaking for the Moorish Science Temple of America, says the religious group has owned the property since 1928 and would like the U.S. National Guard to intervene on his group's behalf.
"This corporate entity and individual believe that they have rights to this property, but they do not," Crowell-Bey said. "They would not go into the property of the Catholic Church of Rome and do this, and they will not do this to the Moorish Science Temple of America. These things will not continue."
That's news to the Kecoughtan Company, which owns the land. Conway Sheild, legal advisor for the company, characterizes the dispute as "bizarre."
The new home at 10 Haywagon Trail was listed with a local Colwell Banker Realtor. On Monday, the Realtor went to the property and discovered furniture had been moved in and the locks changed. She contacted the Kecoughtan Company and was informed that the home had not been sold or rented.
The Kecoughtan Company then discovered that the Moorish Science Temple of America had run a public ad in the Daily Press on June 10 claiming "jurisdiction" over the home, as well as property on Raintree Drive in Hampton.
"We have not been able to contact the people who took out the ad," Sheild said. "We have sent a notice to the post office box that they listed, telling them that they have no legal right to be here under the law."
Sheild said the Kecoughtan Company arranged to remove the furnishings - which also included rolled-up carpeting and framed pictures - into several PODS containers that have now been placed in storage. He said he expects the Hampton Police Division to pursue trespassing charges against the owners of the furniture, and he said it would be "an option" to pursue civil litigation to cover the cost of removing and storing the furniture.
Allison Quinones, spokeswoman for the Hampton police, said detectives have identified the two men who moved the furnishings into the home, but she declined to say if they have been interviewed. She said no charges have been filed at this point.
The Moorish Science Temple of America had made headlines in Newport News earlier this year when Amun Asaru Heh-El walked out of a courtroom in the middle of his trial on traffic violations and claimed that as a citizen of the Moorish Republic Nation, he was not beholden to U.S. law. A spokesman for the temple later said Heh-El was wrong to make this claim.
Crowell-Bey says the temple has owned the land on Haywagon Trail since Aug. 1, 1928, under the conditions of a trust. He cited the legal principle of "jus in re," a Latin phrase pertaining to ownership of land or property.
"This corporate entity can claim whatever it wishes," Crowell-Bey said, "but we are going to do what we are going to do."
The Moors
According to the organization's website, the Moorish Science Temple of America was founded in 1913 as a sect of Islam that blends in elements of other faiths.
