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Address: 1615 SE 82nd Ave.
Year built: Unknown
Square footage: Unknown
Market value: $1.3 million
Owner: Basil Griffin Jr. Trust
Property tax owed: $47,632
How long it’s been delinquent: 4 years
What those taxes could buy: Two gently used minivans for the city’s vehicle fleet.
Why it’s delinquent: Family secrets
“Bad credit? No problem,” says a sign on a used car lot on Southeast 82nd Avenue.
The property’s owners, it turns out, have their own debt problems. The past four years of property tax bills have gone unpaid.
Johnny Cha, manager of the lot, International Auto Sales, said he was friends with the owners and would be happy to leave them a message. No one called WW back.
Cha just finished renovating the lot’s offices. He recently signed a new 10-year lease.
He says he didn’t know about the tax issues and hopes they don’t jeopardize his business. “We put a lot money into it,” he says.
The county is sending property tax bills to an address of a house in the Hazelwood neighborhood owned by Michael and Robert Ephrem. Bobby Ephrem signed a contract to purchase the lot for $700,000 in 2004, but there’s no record of him closing the deal.
Still, Michael Ephrem made a $10,860 tax payment last May—but nearly $50,000 in unpaid taxes remain.
It turns out this isn’t the first time the Ephrem family has been in the news for tax troubles. In 2011, Bobbie Ephrem was sentenced to a year in federal prison for failing to file income tax returns.
The charges stemmed from a 2006 raid. After being tipped off by a police informant, the IRS searched Ephrem’s residence and safe deposit boxes. It seized $3 million in cash and found a deed to the Hazelwood house and bank accounts connected to Bobby’s Auto Sales, a used car dealership.
Ephrem then turned around and sued the federal government, arguing that he’d been robbed of his family’s inheritance. Ephrem is a “patriarch” in the tight-knit Roma community, The Oregonian reported at the time. “The amount of income attributed to Mr. Ephrem was grossly exaggerated,” Ephrem’s attorney, Marc Blackman, argued.
A judge agreed, and ordered the money returned.
WW was able to reach a man named Bobby Ephrem in Eugene. But when asked if he had any family members also named Bobby living in Southeast Portland, he demurred: “There’s too many of them, I don’t know.”