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Westerhuis Items Open for Inspection, Online Bidding

The Scott and Nicole Westerhuis estate auction is off and running:

Westerhuis auction notice

Wieman Land & Auction has the grim duty of auctioning off items that we probably already bought with our tax dollars, which were intended to help American Indian kids prepare for college but instead were misappropriated by Scott and Nicole Westerhuis from the GEAR UP grant to pile their lavish home with luxuries. On sale now are all the gym equipment, TVs, floor lamps, and gym flooring, and other loot that didn’t burn up after Scott Westerhuis, realizing the jig was up, killed his family and torched the house he couldn’t afford without his illegal income stream.

All bids are online and start closing on Monday, September 12 at 10 a.m. However, Wieman is opening the Westerhuis property south of Platte for inspection of the auction items this week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. You can check out all the items, like this hydrotherapy bed (bid at this writing: $110):

Westerhuis hydrotherapy bed
Westerhuis hydrotherapy bed; photo from Wieman Land & Auction

…and some hurdles, new and used surveillance cameras, and a whiteboard with the Westerhuises’ murdered children’s names still drawn on it.

You can also see just what big facility our tax dollars apparently bought for these embezzlers:

Westerhuis gym. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.
Westerhuis gym. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.

Oh, and that white metal cabinet? It’s already been opened:

Westerhuis white metal cabinet. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.
No safe inside. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.

Marty, you did check those dusty prints, right?

Westerhuis binders. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.
Westerhuis binders. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.

…and you already read through these binders, right?

The second-floor windows you see in the gym photo reveal the upstairs conference room, which has a table and ten rolly chairs for sale (current bid: $55):

Westerhuis gym conference room. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.
Westerhuis gym conference room. Photo by Wieman Land & Auction.

Making us pay for these items feels a bit like the Sioux Nation’s having to buy back Pe’ Sla. But lawyers and contractors need to be paid. So swing through Platte, check out the scene of the crime, and see if you can bear to buy any of the remains of the GEAR UP scandal.

12 Comments

  1. Rorschach 2016-09-05 00:43

    Where do bad folks go when they die?
    They don’t go to heaven where the angels fly
    They go to a lake of fire and fry
    won’t see them again till the fourth of July

    What a sad auction. Come pick through the ill-gotten spoils of a thief/murderer. You could throw your garbage in the waste baskets used by a guy who stole $1 million from Indian kids and killed his own kids. Proceeds go to minimize losses for the people he cheated.

  2. Mr Sol 2016-09-05 07:09

    Anybody ever say “Hey Scott how can you afford all this?”

  3. mike from iowa 2016-09-05 07:49

    Is there any legal reason why major creditors get first crack at receiving payback from these kinds of sales? Don’t the smaller creditors have any rights to compensation?

  4. caheidelberger Post author | 2016-09-05 08:11

    Mr. Sol, yes, I hear people around Platte did say that, and they believed the stories Westerhuis told them.

    Ror, why hasn’t the state seized these assets?

  5. The King 2016-09-05 08:24

    Did Stacy, Rick or Keith ever say “Hey Scott how can you afford all this?”

  6. grudznick 2016-09-05 08:27

    That looks like a pretty swell gymnasium. Did this fellow sell memberships like a gym club? It is hard for me to imagine one family working out that much.

  7. Jenny 2016-09-05 11:02

    The state should auction off the items and the give the money to the Native American students. That’s the least the state could have done.

  8. Notinks 2016-09-05 11:02

    Why on Earth wouldn’t Wieman have the good sense to erase that board.

  9. Rorschach 2016-09-05 11:16

    Westerhuis left a trail of victims, Jenny, and not enough property bought with stolen money to make everyone whole. The court will have to decide how many pennies on the dollar everyone will get.

    I thought he burned down the gym along with his house. Apparently not.

  10. Joe 2016-09-05 11:33

    1. Estate law is one of those confusing things that no one totally understands. The argument is when A. owes money to B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, and so on, how does one decide who gets what, and in what order do those get paid. Generally the contracts/loan notes have terms in there where they stand in the line on these situations as well as the order in which they placed claims with the estate.

    2. As for why Wieman’s wouldn’t have erased the board. I’m wondering who took the pictures in general. Usually Wiemans are pretty solid at the auction business. Yet I see a ton of poor pictures, bad descriptions, etc. I’m wondering if someone just supplied Wiemans with the pictures.

    3. For why people didn’t ask? IDK. In general people don’t know much about peoples finances. Or people think they know a ton about it. But with the high land prices he could have said we inherited some land

  11. scott 2016-09-05 11:52

    How can you build all this and not raise red flags on where the money is coming from? Somebody within the education coop had to know what was going on.

    How could the Westerhuis build this and not think that someday somebody was going to figure out what was going on? If you are going to take money, the first thing you do is NOT flaunt it.

    This whole thing still smells!

  12. Fancy Pants 2016-09-06 08:28

    Yes the people in Platte asked the family constantly; the kids asked his older two kids I know for sure. His kids said what they’d been coached to say….its inherited, bought with a grant (no kidding)…..
    There was rumor around Platte for years that Scott was ” milking Mid Central” but till you have proof what do you do. Proof was difficult to come by when you can buy ppl off.
    There’s much more spent than on these material items….cruises for Stacy and the whole Westerhuis family, vacations, fine dining, much more than what you see here.
    How did Scott think this would go on forever as he became more and more bold and lavish would be one for the psychiatrists; mental illness of some sort.

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