Saturday May 3

S.F. judge issues gag order

Prosecutors allege landlords from Palo Alto harassed tenants

Ari Burack / Bay City News

A San Francisco Superior Court judge on Friday refused to reduce bail for a landlord couple accused of harassing tenants they sought to evict from their apartment building, and then issued a gag order against anyone involved talking further about the case outside of court.

Kip Macy, 33, and Nicole Macy, 32, of Palo Alto, face several felony charges, including stalking, residential burglary, conspiracy and grand theft, which could result in possible prison sentences if they are convicted.

Prosecutors allege that during a period from 2006 to 2007, the couple engaged in a pattern of harassing and threatening behavior toward some tenants of their Clementina Street building in the South of Market district, including allegedly ordering workers to cut pieces of support beams below one apartment to get building inspectors to declare the building uninhabitable.

The Macys are also alleged to have gone into another apartment, removed tenants' belongings, stolen cash and dumped liquid ammonia on their clothing, bedding and electronics equipment.

Judge Garrett Wong denied a motion by defense attorneys to reduce the couple's bail from $350,000, though Kip Macy is already out of custody after posting bail earlier this week. His wife remains jailed.

Kip Macy - a software engineer who according to his attorney Lisa DewBerry makes a "lucrative living" and bailed himself out first to make enough money to bail his wife out - was allowed to waive his appearance in court and pleaded not guilty to all the charges through DewBerry, as did Nicole Macy through her attorney, Michael Whelan.

Though he denied the defense bail motion, Wong did say he found it "disturbing" that one of the complaining tenants in the case may have previously sued past property owners with similar allegations, as DewBerry alleged Friday.

"This is a new revelation," Wong said, allowing that he could consider a renewed bail motion at a later date, if defense attorneys can offer written proof of such a claim.

Wong granted a defense request to ban all parties, including witnesses and attorneys in the case, from speaking to the media. DewBerry contended that the couple has been receiving angry e-mails since news articles began appearing after their arrest.

The case returns to court May 23 for a pretrial hearing.