It’s one thing to worry about your house being broken into while you’re away, but what would you do if the intruder stuck around? In a disturbing turn of events, a man tried to steal Halle Berry’s house by claiming ownership while she was away — and, to make matters even more shocking, the intruder made some headway before being caught and carted off to jail.
Per TMZ, law enforcement officials confirm that the trouble with this uninvited house guest started back in January. That marked the first time a 59-year-old man by the name of Ronald Eugene Griffin showed up at Berry’s L.A. home. At the time, he was allegedly fiddling with the locks to the property when he was approached by Berry’s gardener. The interaction was enough to chase him off, but he clearly wasn’t going to be that easy to shake. In March, Griffin came back — with a locksmith!
And here’s the big plot twist: at the same time Berry’s employees were calling the cops to inform them Griffin returned, Griffin was calling the cops to claim Berry’s employees were trespassing on his property. He even managed to get one of the locks changed, as he had provided a deed of ownership. Fortunately, the LAPD quickly figured out that Griffin had doctored the deed. A call to Berry confirmed the man was a stranger and most certainly did not have permission to be in her home.
Adding to the bizarreness of this case? Sources tell TMZ the man didn’t even know he was trying to assume Berry’s home; he just thought it was a random residence. Of course, that made no difference to law enforcement. Griffin was arrested and charged with a felony count of procuring and offering a false warranty deed, along with an additional count of petty theft. His bond is set at $36,000.
Sadly, Berry seems to be particularly unlucky where home invasions are concerned. In 2011, a man named Richard Anthony Franco was charged with burglarizing Berry’s home after he was seen at her Hollywood Hills home three days in a row. “This person has invaded and trampled upon the most fundamental sense of security I have… I am extremely frightened. He has terrorized me and my family,” Berry revealed in court papers.
She also described the second time she saw the stalker on her property, saying, “All of a sudden, I sensed someone behind me and turned to see the same intruder standing less than a foot behind me, staring at me through the glass kitchen door. Panicking and in fear of my life, I turned my body and quickly hit the deadbolt lock on the glass door. I grabbed my phone and ran as fast as I could upstairs, slamming each door behind me as I ran. I got upstairs to a safe place, locked myself inside and dialed 911.”
The saga of Berry’s trouble with break-ins doesn’t end there, though. As originally reported by Radar Online (so, granted, take it with a grain of salt), Berry’s waterfront Malibu home was robbed in November 2018 when she had to evacuate due to Southern California wildfires. The kicker? The looters were reportedly pirates, who arrived at the mansion by boat.
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