WL occupancy suit’s fees turn to tenants
Three Purdue University students who were part of a costly lawsuit over West Lafayette’s occupancy ordinance must now foot the bill for more than $52,000 in fines and legal costs.
Jill Schuler, Kelly Underwood and Melissa Wood were among five women who lived in a rental home — owned by Jerry and Patti Weida — at 112 Sylvia St. during Purdue’s 2005-06 academic year.
The city’s ordinance allows only up to three unrelated people to live together in areas zoned residential.
A lease the women signed holds them responsible for court-ordered fines that came after a 2007 bench trial in Tippecanoe Superior Court 2, according to the Weidas’ attorney, William Kealey.