Last week, we learned that Tom Selleck is a douchey water thief. Selleck owns a large ranch/avocado farm in Hidden Valley, California. California is going through one of the largest droughts in history, and everyone has been ordered to keep their water usage to a minimum or face the consequences (usually large fines). Well, as it turns out, Selleck’s people rented a huge water tanker, drove the tanker to a neighboring municipality, and filled up the tanker using water from a fire hydrant. Selleck’s people did that more than a dozen times. And the Calleguas Municipal Water District has evidence too – they spent thousands of dollars on a private investigator to prove their case. The district filed a lawsuit last week, and almost immediately there were rumors that Selleck was looking to keep this out of the court system, that he was actively trying to settle. Well, it happened.
A Southern California water district voted Wednesday night to accept Tom Selleck‘s offer of more than $21,000 to settle a lawsuit accusing the “Magnum, P.I.” star of taking water he wasn’t entitled to for his 60-acre ranch. The vote, taken during a closed session, was 3-0 with two members of the Calleguas Municipal Water District’s board of directors absent.
The district, which provides water to Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and several other Ventura County cities, sued Selleck and his wife earlier this month after officials said a private investigator discovered a tanker truck bound for their ranch was regularly filling up at a Calleguas fire hydrant. The board’s acting president, Thomas Slosson, said state and local law prohibits taking water outside a district’s boundaries. The ranch, in nearby Westlake Village, is just outside the Calleguas area.
“Underpinning these laws is the concept of basic fairness,” Slosson said after the closed-door vote. “That is, residents and businesses within the district – the rightful users of district water — paid for the construction, maintenance and operation of the public works necessary to meet their water needs, not those of other landowners outside Calleguas’ legal boundaries.”
A representative for Selleck did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment. Slosson said Selleck has agreed to pay the district $21,685.55, which covers the cost of hiring the private investigator. District officials said water was taken from the hydrant more than a dozen times over two years and that they sued after a cease-and-desist order was ignored.
The public works director for the city of Thousand Oaks recently said the water was paid for. Calleguas’ general manager, Susan Mulligan, said Wednesday night that didn’t matter because it is illegal to take water outside the district, paid for or otherwise.
I heard that story, that Selleck had “paid” for the water in another municipality pre-lawsuit, but I didn’t believe it. I just don’t see how it could be true. If he had pre-paid for the water, why did the municipality spend the money on a PI to prove Selleck’s wrong-doing? No, it’s far more likely that once the lawsuit was filed, Selleck’s people quickly started writing checks to make everything go away. And I certainly hope Selleck is out more than $21K. That seems like a relative bargain for “stealing thousands of gallons of water over the course of 2 years.”
Photos courtesy of WENN.
Doooooouche. I don’t understand why he wasn’t arrested? Isn’t stealing a crime? Isn’t stealing water in a drought stricken state particularly a crime? I get the boundary thing, but stealing is stealing, isn’t it?
Agreed. The worst part of this is that the fine, probably insignificant for Tom Selleck, can’t buy more water to replace what he stole because there isn’t any.
He needed to be prosecuted for theft. Hiring a tanker isn’t the same as some small home owner accidentally using a little too much water — this was major.
Not enough penalty.
I believe that he paid for the water pre-lawsuit. It says he paid in a different district and government entities in separate districts are the definition of the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.
That being said, California has a law protecting some species of smelt fish that is not a rare type of fish; that noone eats and yet it takes up half of the state’s fresh water allotment.
If I were a farmer that produced food for humans to eat, I would be livid that I couldn’t produce my crops for a useless fish.
If he had paid for the water pre-lawsuit, then why didn’t he just get his lawyer to show the receipt to the District two years ago when he got three C&Ds to his three different addresses?
Why not clear up the issue two years ago? Why wait until now to settle the issue?
Is it because that even though he may have paid for the water, he knew it was against the law for him to transport that water from one district to another?
But that’s what he wanted to continue doing. So is this the reason why he didn’t settle this issue with his district two years ago? Because he didn’t want to stop transporting that water across district lines? Did he figure that he’d continue doing it illegally by playing a game of chicken with his district authorities and see who blinks first?
I agree.
No, no, arrest only applies if you’re earning in the low five figures.
Sad but true.
Oh my god I know! THIS IS A F*CKING CRIME.
UGH. This guy is such a dbag.
That’s what I thought! How is it that he hasn’t been arrested?
When official letters are sent to each residence you own, you know. I never believed he and his wife were in the dark about this. Such a disappointment.
I really doubt he paid for any water pre-lawsuit.
He got caught, just another rich entitled douche who thinks laws only apply to the little people.
I live in So. Florida where water restrictions are often in place. On 3 separate occasions I caught my next door neighbor running a hose from my house to water his landscaping. The first time, I removed the hose he had attached and stored it in my garage. The second time, I removed the new hose he hooked up and removed the handle off my spigot. After he hooked up a third hose and a new handle I got fed up and called the water department and asked them for advice. They sent a guy out to put a lock on that spigot along with a police officer to talk to my neighbor. I remember telling the officer, “But it’s just water, who steals water?” His reply was that some people feel entitled to anything they want. I guess Tom Selleck is one of those people. It’s a shame really and I hope that the bad publicity embarrasses him for years to come.
Oh, my neighbor? The next year had his kid apply for a college scholarship I was endowing. I rolled my eyes and put THAT application on the bottom of the pile.
I cannot comprehend the level of entitlement it would take to not only trespass THREE TIMES onto someone else’s property for water theft, but also the plotting involved to bring his own hose after you confiscated the first one and his own spigot.
“After he hooked up a third hose and a new handle I got fed up and called the water department and asked them for advice. They sent a guy out to put a lock on that spigot along with a police officer to talk to my neighbor….
The next year had his kid apply for a college scholarship I was endowing….”
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OMG. You know, I want to know, was he even using his own water, to irrigate with.
Or was he only using water to do the irrigating, if he could steal it from you. But I bet he is the first one screaming, if he thinks someone has stole from him.
And of course *sarcasm* he had the nerve to come ask for money for his kids education.
His brother owned a landscaping business. I guess he just couldn’t bear to not have the lushest yard in the neighborhood. I suspect he was supplementing his irrigation but I am not absolutely positive. I really was too busy to pay attention. If it wasn’t for the hose laying blatantly across my side yard and visible from the street when I drove to and from he could have gotten away with it for quite some time.
I was afraid I would be slapped with a huge fine since, of course, he wasn’t paying the least little attention to the published schedule.
Man, just another reason I am glad I sold that house.
“His reply was that some people feel entitled to anything they want.”
yup, they’re called “sociopaths”.
see also: “celebrities”.
He needed to be sued. YOU were paying that water bill and if you had been cited for overuse during a time of restriction you would have had to pay that too.
I live in SoFla too. He was stealing from you! YOU had to pay that water bill, unless in your county or municipality, everyone pays a flat fee for their water usage. In my county, you pay your own bill based on your consumption. I would be PISSED if someone did that to me.
Where I live, we don’t ever have water restrictions (because God knows it snows enough to give Cali some water)……but you wouldn’t believe our next door neighbor. When I was really young, like 11,12…..this neighbor would come over when our parents weren’t home (like in the afternoon) and ask us for stuff–obviously knowing that it would be awkward to say no to an adult. A LOT of stuff. She once kept our plunger for two years…….but she would ask for eggs, vanilla, cup of flour, etc. But one time, my mom came home to her using our hose to fill up HER pool. And I was at the age where I had no idea that you had to pay for the water that came from the hose (for some odd reason I thought we just had to pay for the inside water)……so yea.
Maybe I can settle my parking tickets for 5 cents… Makes about as much sense.
Only way to deal with this kind of thing is to criminalize it. Otherwise it creates a two tier society where the rich can get anything. I mean that’s already practically true, but this is ridiculous.
I’m disappointed as all hell. We are farmers, who farm to make an actual living, not as a nice aside to the rest of our income. This incenses me. No, you cannot take water out of a district, across lines. If he paid the city public works director there’s something questionable going on there as the city has no rights to approve that. Only the water district and that ain’t gonna happen, especially within a drought like this. As to the smelt issue…yeah, it’s fucked up. There’s also the misinformation out there about the level of usage by farmer’s vs. urban but, hey, if all anyone wants is $10 cantaloupe, tomatoes from out of country where the regulations are lax, have at it and support the uninformed who are making the current rules. They’re even taking away rights held by law for over a hundred years. But what the hell…it’s only a farmer.
Bleeecccch.
ETA: By the way, to receive water you have to have stock in the company, own shares. You receive an agreed upon amount of water per share, based on what is available for the year. You still pay the assessments on each share, $4.00 per share, or more, every two months, regardless of whether you receive water, or your stock goes up for sale. Very rarely does water stock in a district come up for sale voluntarily as it is generally a finite number of shares when the district was created. Occasionally you can buy the USE of someone’s shares for a set period of time but it costs out the ass. Yeah, this is a big deal.
I like the way you clarify that farming is your primary job / income. We have what some call ‘play farmers’ around my area who have 15 or more acres and buy equipment to get the tax breaks. They have full time jobs and just ‘play’ now and then with tractors and equipment.
My grandparents were serious farmers in Virginia, and I have a true appreciation for the hours and hard work it takes to help feed our country. I suspect Tom is a play farmer, and stealing water is very serious. I could not believe how lightly this was taken in some of the comments when this was first reported.
@ workdog
Thanks for the explanation. It was very interesting to learn how the system works and how it affects actual farmers.
Yup, what you said!
As a person in Los Angeles County who is suffering through the drought, Tom’s water theft is really disgusting. Just going around my neighborhood, a lot of people now have dirt front lawns, the street medians are dead grass, and plants and shrubs are dying everywhere. If Tom needs water for his trees, he needs to buy it from another state and have it trucked in. Just because he is a “celebrity” doesn’t mean he deserves more than anyone else who’s struggling to cut back on water usage.
If he had paid for it, then why didn’t he end this controversy back in 2013 when he got three C&D letters (to three of his different addresses)? Why let it go on for another two years?
You’d think he’d have gotten his lawyer to send the bill of sales to the appropriate authorities back in 2013. Why sit on it for another two years? Why keep the authorities in the dark about his payment all this time? Sounds odd to me.
If someone had sent you three C&Ds, then wouldn’t you have settled it at that time, instead of waiting another two years and continuing to do the same thing that got you those three C&Ds in the first place?
I think I answered my own questions upthread. I think he figured he’ll keep doing it until he was forced to stop. In the meantime, he’d be getting the benefit of all that water. I think he knew it would take a lot of time and money to stop him and that even then, the district might not be able to do much to him in the end. I think he also probably figured that if it happened that he was fined, it’ll be affordable and not such a burden to himself.
That’s what I suspect as well. Pure arrogance at play.
So he’s basically only paying the costs of the investigator? That makes no sense, there should have been a fine or something else to compensate the district it was stolen from.
No way do I believe that he pre-paid for that water. If he had, there would have been records of a permit to do so, and invoices/receipts for it. This is just one more example of the wealthy who feel entitled to do whatever they want, just because they can, and they only need to write a check after the fact to appease everyone. I don’t live in California, but I can (almost) guarantee that if “I” had done this, I would be looking at more than just a check to cover the cost of a PI. Not to mention I would probably be sitting in jail right now for grand theft and larceny! The nerve of some people just makes me so….grrr.
The fine is a joke to him.
I would prefer for him to be court ordered to stand in public with a sign that says something about being a thief
Allowing Selleck to get away with a small fine (based on his wealth) is THE problem with California. The guy stole from everyone in the state who is trying to conserve water. The theft was immoral, and so was his overuse of water at a time when the state is facing a serious drought. I used to like his acting, but will deliberately avoid watching anything he’s in from now on. If enough people do the same, maybe he will get the message that people don’t like thieves.