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Lawyer: Realtor charged with throwing carcasses is fired

The Main Line couple accused of trying to sabotage a neighbor's home sale by throwing dead mice and snakes into their yard were falsely accused, and the controversy has cost the wife her job, the couple's attorney said.

Police in Lower Merion say a security camera captured footage of two upscale Main Line real estate agents tossing dead mice and snakes onto the yard of their next-door neighbor's $1 million home on Booth Lane - all part of an alleged plot to sabotage its sale. It so happens that their house is also on the market. (Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer)
Police in Lower Merion say a security camera captured footage of two upscale Main Line real estate agents tossing dead mice and snakes onto the yard of their next-door neighbor's $1 million home on Booth Lane - all part of an alleged plot to sabotage its sale. It so happens that their house is also on the market. (Steven M. Falk / Staff Photographer)Read more

The Main Line couple accused of trying to sabotage a neighbor's home sale by throwing dead mice and snakes into their yard were falsely accused, and the controversy has cost the wife her job, the couple's attorney said.

Prudential Fox & Roach, which employed the couple as real estate agents, fired Andrea Straub, "presumably for the negative publicity the alleged incident caused and the sensational reporting of it," said George Bochetto, the attorney for Andrea, 34, and Jonathan Straub, 40, in a statement Wednesday.

Bochetto said he would hold a news conference Tuesday morning to "divulge previously unreported facts in the case."

Neither he nor the Straubs would comment further on Friday.

A spokesperson for Prudential Fox & Roach said the company's policy "is not to comment on matters related to its independent contractor sales associates."

So far, the story has sounded like a tale of affluent real estate agents gone wild over competing self-interests - the Straubs also have their home on the market. Both houses sit on roughly half-acre lots, each with about 2,200 square feet of living space.

Lower Merion Township police said the Straubs were charged last month with disorderly conduct and harassment after security-camera footage showed them cutting tree branches, knocking over "For Sale" signs, and allegedly committing other acts of vandalism in Mary Martell's yard on Booth Lane.

Martell's house sits behind the Straubs', although their driveways are side-by-side, said a Booth Lane neighbor.

According to the separate citations issued to the Straubs, they "with intent caused public inconvenience, annoyance by creating a physically offensive condition, which served no legitimate purpose."

Township spokesman Tom Walsh has said the Straubs confessed to the vandalism after police confronted them with footage from a security camera that Martell had installed.

Reporting on the case, however, has been skewed badly, the couple's lawyer said in the statement.

"The Straubs are victims of horrible falsities, and we will prove it in the court of law," Bochetto said. "Prudential Fox Roach's unfortunate termination of Andrea Straub [Wednesday] was precipitated entirely by CBS3 Eyewitness News' instantaneous vilification of the Straubs in their ratings-driven rush to break a story. Their report was riddled with falsities, and we'll lay it all out at next week's news conference."

CBS3 officials could not be reached for comment Friday.