Where the hell is Max Bossarei?

He’s backing out of the public sphere and selling his downtown motel, but just bought a million-dollar home. Tenants allege the landlord has “unjustly enriched himself” by continuing to evade service.

One of Laramie’s most notorious landlords is up to his old tricks — despite increased media attention and local government efforts to rein in the worst behavior of the city’s worst landlords.

Maximus Bossarei has been accused of renting out run-down, even dangerous apartments and dealing with tenants in a threatening manner. In more than a dozen lawsuits, he has been accused of unjustly keeping deposits, dodging law enforcement, evading court summons and skipping town periodically — all allegedly to avoid facing his accusers in circuit court.

Bossarei appears to be offloading one of his most significant sources of passive income — the motel on Third Street formerly known as the Xenion. He’s in the process of selling that motel to Stephen Pence, the owner of Laramie Property Management Group.

But Bossarei is not necessarily leaving the area.

Early this year, he purchased a large home southeast of Laramie and the 35 acres it sits on. The property is now worth more than $1 million.

Max Bossarei’s $1 million home at 24 Indian Springs Road, as advertised on Zillow. The spacious brick home sits on 35 acres of land not far from Vedauwoo.

The spacious 4,300-square-foot house is in the gated community of Rockaway Ranch and can be seen on Zillow, which currently prices the property at around $1,090,000.

The solid brick home — which Zillow calls a “Wyoming trophy property” — boasts Brazilian cherry floors, marble countertops in the kitchen, and heated floor tiles in the master suite bathroom. The main house is complemented by a spacious one-bedroom carriage house and a separate geodesic dome outfitted for year-round use.

“Located only minutes away from Vedauwoo recreational area, which provides endless outdoor activities in the Medicine Bow National Forest, this 35-acre retreat has abundant wildlife and breathtaking 360 degree views,” reads an overview posted to Zillow.

The purchase comes as a slap in the face to the dozens of former tenants, many of them poor, who allege that Bossarei robbed and cheated them — by refusing to return deposits, deferring maintenance in his rentals and, in at least one case, absconding with a tenant’s personal property.

It’s not clear if Bossarei is living at Rockaway Ranch currently, or if his property there serves as yet another rental.

Some of Bossarei’s current in-town tenants, speaking anonymously, said they communicate with the landlord via text and most haven’t seen him in months. But there are also other more subtle signs that Bossarei is stepping back from involvement in the community — and trying to step out of the public eye.

During the 2020 election cycle, Bossarei was heavily involved in Republican and right-wing organizing. He served as the master of ceremonies for a militia-recruiting event at the Albany County Fairgrounds. Local politicians Ocean Andrew and Terri Jones were among the event’s speakers. During his time at the mic, Bossarei told the crowd to vote for Andrew, Jones and several other Republicans running for local office. His properties across town were decorated with campaign signs, including a large sign for Terri Jones on a prominent Grand Avenue property.

But in 2022, despite a busy election cycle and several high-profile, high-stakes local races, his rentals do not bear campaign signs.

In addition to Republican politics, he has also been a public advocate for landlords and property managers. But he’s less visible these days.

In 2019, Bossarei spoke at a city council meeting, arguing against rental regulations. The topic reemerged in 2021 as the Laramie City Council workshopped and eventually passed the City Rental Housing Code. Several landlords turned out to decry the regulations, but Bossarei was nowhere to be seen.

Contacting Bossarei directly has always been difficult — whether you’re a former tenant seeking the return of your security deposit, the sheriff seeking to serve a court summons, or a journalist seeking to pose a series of profanity-laced questions about how certain individuals sleep at night.

But it appears that Bossarei’s direct involvement in Laramie is shifting.

Even so, tenants continue to fight him for the return of their deposits and continually find themselves left out in the cold when the sheriff’s office or even private process servers fail to locate Max Bossarei.

Same old tricks: Unreturned deposits, unserved summons

An investigative feature published in January 2021 shed light on Bossarei’s involvement in the community as a landlord. Former tenants described sub-par, run-down and even dangerous living conditions in his properties across town. Several tenants alleged the landlord “double-rented” them — continuing to collect rent payments from a former tenant even as new tenants started paying rent for the same space.

Tenants were frequently unable to air these allegations in court because the Albany County Sheriff’s Office repeatedly failed to serve Bossarei the court summons.

Bossarei was able to keep more than $16,000 in contested rent and deposit payments, not by defending his right to the money in circuit court, but by making himself unreachable by law enforcement.

More than 18 months after the investigative feature’s publication, Bossarei still owns many of the same properties he did last year, and he is still keeping deposits by “dodging” service — including from a disabled veteran who has not been able to serve Bossarei despite multiple attempts.

Two of these tenants, Mark Star and Paul Stuckey, were not trying to rent from Max Bossarei when they signed a lease in 2018.

The University of Wyoming students signed with TD Real Estate for a rental at 803 East Flint Street. They liked it enough the first year to sign for a second — but during that second year, the property switched hands. TD Real Estate sold it to Bossarei in the winter of 2020.

In taking over the property, Bossarei inherited the responsibility to honor current leases and to pay back any deposits paid to the property’s former owners. But a few months later, when their lease was up, Star and Stuckey found it difficult to recover their $1,275 deposit.

“We made multiple demands for the return of our deposit,” a small claims affidavit reads. “Initially, (Bossarei) repeatedly promised that the check was on the way, which is confirmed in his emails. When we continued our demands for the deposit, we were threatened with credit and reputation ruination if we pursued the matter.”

Bossarei has been accused by several other former tenants of resorting to threats whenever those tenants inquired about their deposits.

Star and Stuckey filed a lawsuit in Albany County Circuit Court, with the help of attorney John Hursch, an emeritus member of the Wyoming State Bar Association. Hursch assists and represents university students who are veterans; he offers his counsel pro bono, or free of charge.

Many of Bossarei’s former tenants choose to cut their losses and never legally challenge the landlord. Of those who do try to bring Bossarei to court, the majority cannot afford lawyers and must navigate the civil litigation themselves. A student legal aid clinic sometimes assists UW students experiencing landlord issues, but the clinic is frequently too busy to take on new cases.

With or without legal representation, former tenants filing lawsuits against Bossarei consistently run into the same roadblock: Bossarei is a tough guy to serve.

“We’ve followed multiple cases in small claims court and he’s always dodged service,” Hursch said. “The sheriff has repeatedly come back saying they can’t find him to get him served. So the case is still pending to try to get the $1,275 back from him.”

Other lawyers have referred to Bossarei as “the Artful Dodger.” Hursch called him “sneaky.”

“We’re just waiting for him to surface somewhere,” Hursch said. “He’s pretty sneaky, he’s pretty clever. We’ve discussed strategies and ideas about what can be done. And we’ve kind of stalemated because he’s hiding, and I don’t even know if he’s here in Laramie.”

Sheriff Aaron Appelhans said his office has to put in significant extra effort to serve Bossarei.

“We’re usually only required to make three attempts, but in most attempts, we’re making five, seven, nine, ten attempts to try to get that paperwork served, because it’s definitely an inconvenience for those people who filed to have that paperwork served,” Appelhans said. “Sometimes there’s no way around it. If a person moved out of state, we can’t do that.”

Appelhans said Bossarei had briefly moved to Fort Collins last summer, when Star and Stuckey tried to bring their lawsuit.

“Instead of just knocking on the door, a lot of times it’s phone calls, we show up at places of employment, other people’s residences, known acquaintances, going to other places he socially frequents — there’s other things we can do but haven’t had to,” Appelhans said. “Basically we just called him and told him we’re going to go everywhere else that you don’t live in an attempt to find you so that you can get served. And then we also explained that this isn’t a criminal complaint, it’s a civil complaint, so he’s not under arrest in any way, shape or form, we just need to give him the paperwork.”

This did not work for Star and Stuckey’s lawsuit. But the sheriff’s office did successfully serve Bossarei on behalf of his brother and fellow landlord, Hanri Bouzari, in a lawsuit brought against Bouzari.

Once he was served, the legal process could play out. The court determined Bouzari had unjustly kept his tenants’ deposit and ordered Bouzari to pay them $565.

In the rare instances when tenants have gotten Bossarei or Bouzari to the courtroom, they usually win back at least part of the contested amount. But it often takes former tenants going to extraordinary lengths to even get that far.

And Hursch said getting Bossarei to the courtroom is no guarantee of a civil judgment, and no guarantee that tenants will recover their missing deposits.

“Once you get him caught, then you have to go to court, have the trial and get the judgment, and then a second problem arises,” Hursch said. “He’s got his assets hidden in such a way that you can’t find them to get satisfaction for your kids. So he can simply starve them out. After a while, they get tired of fighting and he gets to keep the money. That’s the way it works for him.”

Same old tricks: “Defendant has intentionally made himself nearly impossible to contact”

Star and Stuckey are not the only ones with court summons Bossarei has successfully dodged.

Lucy Bennett, Lexi Mayo and Meredith Hoerman have yet to recover their $2,750 deposit for a rental agreement that ended in December.

“Plaintiffs provided (Bossarei) with their new mailing addresses as required by Wyoming Statute 1-21-1208(a) on three separate occasions: December 22, 2021, January 19, 2022, and March 2, 2022,” their complaint reads. “Demand for the return of the security deposit was made along with each notice of the new mailing address.”

If a Wyoming landlord chooses to keep any or all of a security deposit, they are required by law — Wyoming Statute 1-21-1208(a) — to provide an itemized list of deductions. If they do not provide this list, but keep all or part of the deposit, the tenant is technically entitled to the return of the entire deposit.

Bennett, Mayo and Hoerman allege that Bossarei has not only failed to return their deposit, but has also failed to provide an itemized list of reasons for keeping all or part of it.

“Defendant provided no address in his lease with Plaintiffs and has refused Plaintiffs' specific requests for his address,” the complaint alleges. “The only method of communication Plaintiffs had with Defendant was through his cell phone and Defendant has stopped responding to all cell phone communications. Defendant has intentionally made himself nearly impossible to contact for the sole purpose of making it extremely difficult for Plaintiffs to get their deposits back.”

The former tenants allege that Bossarei “unjustly enriched himself” by keeping their deposit. But so far they have been unable to argue their case before a circuit court judge because Bossarei has not been served a court summons.

This time, the Albany County Sheriff’s Office was not asked to serve Bossarei; instead, the former tenants went straight to a private process server. That private process server was George Gliem, who, in the past, has been uniquely successful in serving Bossarei.

But even Gliem was unable to serve Bossarei this time.

“Maximus Bossarei no longer lives in Laramie, Wyoming,” Gliem writes in a court filing. “His tenants have said they are paying their rent to Maximus Bossarei in care of Laramie Property Management Group.”

The Xenion changes hands, again

Laramie Property Management Group is buying Bossarei’s motel on Third Street.

Bossarei bought the downtown motel in 2018 and rented the rooms as monthly rentals. In 2020, he fought then-County Assessor Grant Showacre over the value of the motel. The assessor had granted him a discount on the motel’s valuation in anticipation of repairs Bossarei allegedly claimed he would make. When Bossarei did not make those repairs, the assessor removed the discount.

The valuation determines the property taxes that Bossarei must pay, so the landlord paid far less in property taxes for the year the discount was in place.

In 2017, the owners before Bossarei had paid more than $6,000 in property taxes.

In 2018, with the valuation discount, Bossarei paid less than $2,000. Now that the discount has been removed, the property taxes now hover around $4,000 a year for the entire motel.

Bossarei never had to pay back the discount he received for the repairs he did not make.

But he did appeal the valuation, alleging it was unfair for the assessor to double the value of the property (from the discounted rate to the non-discounted rate). The county commission — which was chaired at the time by Bossarei’s political ally Terri Jones — agreed with Bossarei and struck down Showacre’s new valuation.

Showacre appealed to the state, which swiftly reversed the county’s decision and sided with the assessor; Bossarei was required to pay property taxes on the full value of the property, and county records show that he did.

Throughout Bossarei’s tenure at the motel, residents there have reported experiencing the same aggressive behavior and the same difficulty recovering their deposits as Bossarei’s tenants elsewhere.

Travis Rainey was one such resident. In the spring of 2020, Rainey was between seasonal wildlife-oriented jobs and looking for a short-term rental in Laramie. Those are hard to come by in a town where most leases are designed around the academic year, so Rainey wound up at the Xenion — in a room that wasn’t great, at a price that was too high.

Rainey dropped $600 on rent and another $600 on the deposit. Bossarei never returned any of it and eventually stopped communicating with Rainey.

“After moving to Laramie, I quickly grew fond of the town and the surrounding landscapes, and I have hopes of moving back one day when my career and family circumstances are right,” Rainey said. “However, after a job was halted by COVID, I found myself needing very short term housing in Laramie, and I ended up renting a bleak room from Max at his motel-turned-slum. Luckily I only ended up staying there a month. Other, less fortunate tenants were there much longer. He stole $600 from me during the peak of the COVID shutdown.”

Now Stephen Pence of Laramie Property Management Group is buying the Xenion.

“I reached out to Max when I saw what was happening to tenants that he was renting to,” Pence said. “I approached him. My intent was just to manage his properties for him to try to get him out of the picture and then give the tenants someone in town they could communicate with. One thing led to another and I offered to acquire the motel.”

Pence said he plans to provide “affordable, long-term housing” and improve the downtown property. Having sold the motel, Pence said Bossarei will no longer be involved.

Pence spoke out against the City Rental Housing Code when the city council debated rental regulations in December and January. He took issue with the requirement that landlords register their properties with the city manager’s office.

“A lot of the owners are kind of old-school and like Wyoming being a non-disclosure state,” Pence said during the council’s Jan. 4 meeting. “It kind of raises the hairs on the back of their neck when they hear about needing to register with the city.”

The rental regulations passed with a 7-2 vote, and landlord registration is now open. The health and safety requirements of the new rental housing code will be enforceable via a tenant complaint process starting in 2023.

To Rainey, it feels wrong that Bossarei is able to cash out — and that the landlord will not be held accountable for the misery he dished out.

“Max and his slum are an ugly, infected boil on an otherwise beautiful memory of my time in Laramie,” Rainey said. “Hearing that he's selling the property and possibly leaving Laramie gives me mixed feelings. It seems the local criminal and civil justice pipelines have utterly failed in effecting justice for this wretched man, and the idea of him leaving without balancing the scales is unfortunate. He still owes many people money. I suspect he will find some other unsuspecting town with loose rental laws and conduct the same predatory behavior.”

Some of Bossarei’s tenants court-ordered to not pay rent

As Bossarei sheds his largest in-town property, he also removes himself from the one place deputies and private process servers have been able to serve him — and the one place tenants have been able to recover costs.

Bossarei has been served at least thrice by sheriff’s deputies at the Albany County Courthouse. This can occur when he voluntarily shows up to accept a summons, or possibly when he is at the courthouse for other business, such as disputing the valuation of the Xenion.

But in every other instance in which Bossarei has been served, that service has occurred at the motel on Third Street — usually by private process server George Gliem.

For example, Brad and Kimberly Beck were among the dozens of tenants to rent from Bossarei during his management of the motel. After the landlord absconded with more than $4,000 worth of their furniture and belongings, the Becks sued Bossarei, going to extraordinary lengths to get their day in court. They hired Gliem to help, as the Laramie Reporter highlighted a year ago:

Bossarei has now been successfully served at least twice (by a private process server) … This time he was served by George Gliem of Day & Night Process Serving.

Gliem provided an account of his latest successful service attempt in court filings for the Becks’ civil suit.

“After a few minutes of knocking, Mr. Bossarei opened the door,” Gliem writes in the court document. “At first he said he was not Max. Then I told him that he looked like the same guy I served a couple months earlier. I gave him the option of showing me an identification with his name on it. At that point, he refused to take the papers and closed the door.”

Gliem put the papers on the door, and photographed the license plates of two cars parked in front of the unit that were titled in Bossarei’s name.

“It just blows me away that he talks so tough and then hides,” Brad Beck said. “When the rubber hits the road, he’s the first one to close his door and hide inside.”

The court ruled against Bossarei and ordered him to pay the Becks $4,200. Few tenants have made it this far in their struggle to recover money from Bossarei.

Most tenants don’t go the civil litigation route, often for financial reasons or concern about their own mental health. Of those who do, only a small percentage ever see Bossarei served. The Becks discovered that the struggle does not end even there.

They are still attempting to recover the money Bossarei was court-ordered to pay them more than a year ago.

John Hursch, who is representing Mark Star and Paul Stuckey, anticipates a similar battle if their case ever gets Bossarei before a circuit court judge.

“You’re in civil court, so you have a civil judgment and then under the law, you can attach bank accounts and garnish wages or repossess a vehicle or whatever,” he said. “But you have to find those assets first and they can’t be hidden away in someone else’s name or a corporation or something like that. It’s kind of like a maze trying to figure out the ones that he owns. But unless you can find something to attach, many times judgments go unsatisfied … It’s kind of a shallow victory to get a judgment against someone if you can’t collect.”

As a landlord, Bossarei doesn’t make wages that one could garnish. But he does collect rent payments.

In an effort to recover the $4,200 owed to Brad and Kimberly Beck, the court ordered some residents of Bossarei’s Xenion Motel to withhold their rent. Instead, they were ordered to make their regular rent payments to a bank account, which could then be used to pay the Becks.

Without the prominent Third Street property attached to his name, it might get more challenging for law enforcement, process servers and tenants to hold “the Artful Dodger” accountable.

But for the dozens of former tenants who lived the worst and most traumatizing years of their lives under Bossarei’s thumb, fewer people living under his management is a net good.

Rainey, for example, is not happy that Bossarei will evade consequences and keep the money he made by not returning deposits. But he is also grateful that others in Laramie won’t experience what he did.

“A Max-free Laramie is a better Laramie,” Rainey said. “I also suppose that while he might be savvy and connected enough to avoid external consequences, that no matter where he goes, he still has to live with his own personal, internal consequences.”