Steven Powell ordered to sell house to pay off debts


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PUYALLUP, Wash. — A Washington court has ordered sheriff's deputies to put Steven Powell's house up for sale.

According to a public notice filed Dec. 12, a civil Pierce County Superior Court judge has ordered the Pierce County Sheriff's Office to sell Powell's house, 18615 94th Avenue Court East, in order to start paying off the $1.9 million he owes in a civil judgement to the two young girls he was convicted of taking voyeuristic pictures of from his bedroom window.

If Powell can come up with $1.9 million by Feb. 7, the house will not be sold, according to court documents. Otherwise it will go on the auction block at 10 a.m. that day.

Powell, who is representing himself, filed a nine-page, handwritten motion Friday in Tacoma's Pierce County Superior Court requesting the civil suit against him be dismissed because he claims he was not properly notified of the court hearings, making the suit void.

Powell, 63, was convicted in May 2012 of 14 counts of voyeurism for taking photographs of two neighbor girls, then ages 8 and 10, with a telephoto lens from his house while they were nude or partially nude in their own bathroom.

In 2011, West Valley police traveled to Powell's Puyallup house to serve a search warrant in connection to the investigation of Powell's missing daughter-in-law, Susan Cox Powell. A month later, evidence collected from the house led to Steven Powell's arrest. Police say they found about 2,000 photographs of young children, mostly young girls and many in partial states of undress. Many of the pictures were taken while Powell was in his house looking out his window to the street or into neighbor's windows.

Powell, who is currently incarcerated at the Monroe Correctional Complex in Washington and is scheduled to be released in March, recently wrote in court documents that he planned to resume living at his Puyallup home once he completed his sentence.

He said his daughter, Alina, and son John still live there, and if he were to lose his house, they would become "homeless."

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