A 73-year-old veteran is being threatened with foreclosure unless he pays an $8,000 dollar fine – all for displaying a small American flag in a plant pot outside his Sweetwater, Florida home.
When Larry Murphree placed the stars and stripes in a flower pot on his front porch, he received a letter from the Sweetwater Homeowner’s Association demanding that he pay the huge fine within 30 days or be slapped with a foreclosure lien on his house.
“There’s an actual Florida statute that says he can display this flag,” legal expert Dale Carson told WTEV-47, an opinion backed up by federal law, contradicting claims by the HOA that Murphee is in violation of recently re-written rules concerning flag displays.
Murphee has been battling the HOA over the issue for more than two years, having already filed a lawsuit against the HOA and settled out of court. “They settled that case and I thought that would be the end of it,” said Murphree.
The veteran is vowing to continue the fight until he is left alone.
“I have a right to have it there,” Murphree told First Coast News. “They’ve got a foreclosure on my house that’s why the flag is upside down. (I am) hurt disappointed that they just keep going after the American flag and after me.”
(Read the rest of the story here…)
