Shelton Man Suing Oxford Over Tax Sale

A Shelton man who bought an Oxford business through a tax sale last year is now suing the Town of Oxford.

Angelo Melisi said he agreed to pay $600,000 for the site of the Steelvault Data Centers building at 66 Hawley Road when the town auctioned it in June, claiming then owners Mahmoud Wahba and his son, Tim, Wahba of Greenwich, owed more than $1 million to the town.

But in a lawsuit filed in Superior Court this month, Melisi said that after the tax sale, his attorney received a letter from an attorney representing the Wahbas who said the sale was "nefarious and illegal." They promised to sue him and take possession of the land, according to an article originally reported by the Valley Independent Sentinel.

Melisi said Oxford officials told him they would get the lawsuit dropped within six months or they would return his $100,000 downpayment; neither has happened, Melisi says, according to the Sentinel report. 

The Wahbas claim they paid their tax money in full and that it was stolen by former Oxford tax collector Karen Guillet, who is now serving a four-year prison sentence for embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the town. 

Read the full article on the Vally Indy's website here.