Network television websites are publicity machines—none more than the webpage for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, where you can nominate a family, research the appliances Sears donates to the show, learn about the Fords the company bestows upon the newly-made-overed, or just watch reruns of particularly moving episodes.

Heartwarming modern rock blares in fanfare as the page opens, and your emotions crescendo when the voice of spiky-haired host Ty Pennington roars out of your tiny computer speakers, asking . . . no, demanding . . . “Are you guys ready to take down a house?” Pennington’s army of contractors needs just an hour of your Sunday night to destroy and rebuild the dilapidated, outdated abode of a deserving family unit—and to simultaneously, it seems, rebuild their lives.

That was the scenario two-and-a-half years ago, when ABC chose the Leomiti-Higgins family home for renovation. Consider the glowing synopsis of the show—Episode 31 of Season Two according to TV.com: “A caring and generous family from Santa Fe Springs, California, who took five orphans into their small house, are featured in an episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

It was classic TV: storybook proof that good things happen to good people because they happened to these people. And, because they weren’t so different from you, it validated your own life—the great American gamble, all gashog SUV/subprime adjustable mortgage/double-kids-no-income of it. If it happened to the Leomiti-Higginses, it could happen to you. That was a story. Until, suddenly, it wasn’t.

In fact, the network’s remake of the Leomiti-Higgins home and family unwittingly set in motion a lawsuit that this month will end in a jury trial that could wind up taking down the same house twice—call it Ultra-Extreme Re-Makeover: You-Can’t-Go-Home-Again Edition, if you will.

Because of that jurisprudential postscript, the full Leomiti-Higgins story is nowhere to be found on any of the Disney-owned communications giant’s various e-tentacles. The family and the orphans also aren’t talking about what actually happened inside that house. But in court documents, lawyers for the Higgins orphans claim the Leomiti parents systematically harassed them—going so far as to call them “smelly”—in an effort to drive them outdoors, presumably leaving the house, the new cars and the expensive electronics all to the Leomitis.

Reached at the family home, Leomiti matriarch Lokilani Leomiti declined to comment, but in court papers, she and husband Firipele “Phil” Leomiti have denied the allegations against them. Sources close to the parents, meanwhile, say the kids simply outgrew their britches in the sudden flood of riches, wouldn’t follow house rules, and voluntarily left the Leomiti home in an impulsive moment of teen angst.

“I heard they left on their own,” says Theresa Solorio, who lives three doors down Shade Lane in a one-story, indeterminately beige stucco house that’s probably not too unlike the one the Leomitis used to live in. “I think it probably went to their head.”
Solorio praises the Leomitis, saying, “If it weren’t for them, those kids wouldn’t have had anything.”

As Solorio speaks from just inside the security door, her adult son, Abel Lujan, pulls his pickup up in front of the house, come to pay his mom a visit. Soon he’s in the conversation, too, although his assessment of the situation is much more succinct: “Greed took over.”

* * *

Television viewers saw the Leomitis and the Higgins together for the first time on March 27, 2005, when Episode 31 was broadcast on ABC. But their relationship wasn’t just made for TV. The families had been friends for at least eight years. Their children grew up together. The families attended the same church, Norwalk’s Assembly of God. They maintained their bond through some difficult circumstances.

The Higgins family—parents Charles and Charis, their daughter and four sons—lived in a small, two-bedroom apartment in Downey. Charis was fighting breast cancer. The Leomitis were better off, but hardly rich; the parents, their three children and a grandmother lived in western Santa Fe Springs, near the Downey border. But they claimed an unconditional connection. “We just love [the Higgins] kids,” Lokilani Leomiti, the familiy matriarch, told the ABC cameras, “like we love our own.”

But Episode 31 was recorded three years ago. Things are different now; we also have Deal or No Deal.

The chain of events that was to bring these two families closer together, then push them farther than ever apart began April 16, 2004, when Charis Higgins lost her long battle with breast cancer. It accelerated 10 weeks later, on June 28, when Charles Higgins—still grieving for his wife, and perhaps partially because of her passing—died of heart failure. Their five children, ages 14 to 21, were suddenly orphans.

Six days later, on July 4, 2004, the Leomiti family opened their home to the Higgins children . . . although, technically, two of them—21-year-old Charles II and 19-year-old Michael—were already adults. Members of the Norwalk Assembly of God responded, too, raising approximately $50,000 for the Higgins kids, and a Chevy Astro minivan, too—either purchased or donated. Before the month ended, the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition—tipped off by local media—came calling. They wanted to build a house for the Leomitis, who were now raising eight children under one roof.

It seemed like a wonderful idea at the time: the family would get The House of Tomorrow and ABC would get another Hallmark card Makeover entry, this one about a can-do brood with a never-say-die spirit and hearts the size of washtubs. Somehow, some way, we now see that something failed.

Just 13 months later, the Higgins children were out on their own again, homeless . . . and suing. They were suing the Leomiti parents, Disney/ABC International Television Inc., and the producers of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Lock and Key Productions and Endemol USA. They were suing for fraud, breach of contract, false advertising, assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Last month a Los Angeles Superior Court judge threw out a key allegation against ABC—that it broke a contract with the five orphaned Higgins children to provide them a permanent home—but the remainder of the case is set for trial May 14.

How it came to this demonstrates how we rarely know what goes on in other peoples’ lives—even if portions of those lives subsequently air in prime time.

* * *

A few months after the March 2005 broadcast of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition portrayed the Leomiti-Higgins Household as if it were One Big Happy Family, the situation had disintegrated into One Helluva Legal Mess. And according to an August 2005 complaint submitted on behalf of the Higgins children by Los Angeles attorney Patrick A. Mesisca, signs of trouble had appeared long before—in September 2004, only two months after the kids moved in.

That’s when the complaint alleges the Higgins’ new mom, Loki Leomiti, started badmouthing them in conversation—telling “third parties” that the Higgins’ old mom and dad “did not teach them anything,” that the kids had “no common sense” and “did not know how to clean themselves”—that they “smelled,” and that they “did not miss their parents.” Loki Leomiti is also alleged to have told “third parties” that she told the kids “no one’s gonna remember you . . . in six months you’ll be forgotten.”

Within the next eight months, the four oldest Higgins kids moved out of the Leomiti house, leaving only the youngest, Jeremiah behind. It sounds like a classic evil-stepmother story, but a May 6, 2005 e-mail from Extreme Makeover producer Matt Fisher to Tom Forman at the television production company Endemol, contained in a declaration filed by the plaintiffs’ attorney, presented a contrasting take; given when relations between the two families were near their nadir. “The Leomiti parents were, first and foremost, worried about the Higgins kids and the decision they’ve made,” Fisher wrote, referring to the older kids’ decision to move out.

Between those opposing perspectives, however, both families seemed harmonious enough in October 2004 when they made a tape for ABC, nominating the Leomiti family for Extreme Makeover. A transcript of raw footage from the tape—producers, parents and kids collaborating to ratchet up the pathos—was introduced into court records by ABC’s lawyers. It reads in part:

“Hello. I’m Philip Leomiti. This is my big happy family—the Leomitis/Higgins. (everybody says hi everybody). And this is my wife Loki Lana Leomitis [sic].” After this, the Higgins children introduce themselves, and the eldest makes the nomination:

“Producer: ‘The Leomitis deserve a home makeover because . . . ‘

“Charles [II]: Alright. The Leomitis deserve a home makeover because I’ve known them since I was 13 years old and so they been like my second parents to me and they always done stuff for me, whether I need money or just someone to love me . . . they’ve always been there and we need a home makeover really bad because there’s like 6 of us now and we could use a lot more rooms [sic].”

Everybody gave heartfelt speeches on the meaning of family and love, but as negotiations with the television network continued, emotions within the extended family started to crack under the weight of all that prospective gold. They couldn’t take it.

The complaint by the Higgins’ lawyer ties this change to communications with ABC in November 2004 that he says made clear the five Higgins children would soon receive lots of gifts—including five laptop computers, four digital cameras, three stereo systems, an encyclopedia set for Joshua, a massage table and books on physical therapy for Michael—and Ford Focuses for Charles II, Michael and Charis. However, the network insists it did not tell the family exactly what gifts it would receive.

According to the complaint, the Leomitis began to wage “an orchestrated campaign to degrade and insult the plaintiffs with the ultimate objective of driving plaintiffs out of the new house and to appropriate the valuable merchandise and cash provided.” In December 2004, Lokilani Leomiti had Charles Higgins II deposit the church donations from July into a bank account “for the ostensible benefit of plaintiffs”—but an account which only she could access. The television cameras were still three months away and—though no one saw this when the episode aired—the Leomiti-Higginses had already ceased to be the family we thought they were, if ever they were that family.

* * *

By early 2005, ABC had the documents signed and was ready to build a house, getting the family out of the way by sending them on a Disney vacation cruise in Florida on Feb. 15. For the next nine days, Ty Pennington and his hordes of wish-granters turned the Leomitis’ three-bedroom, two-bathroom house into a two-story, nine-bedroom edifice. On Feb. 24 the family flew back to California to hear Pennington bellow his famous catch phrase: “Bus driver, move that bus!” and to finally see their new house.

Clad in grayish-beige stucco, the Leomiti house doesn’t look that big from the street—but it is, going back and back and back on the 5,400-square-foot lot until it fits eight growing kids and three adults. It’s a nice location: mid-block on a narrow residential street, far enough from major boulevards and freeways for a little peace and quiet. You could imagine the six Leomitis and the five Higgins actually having used the roomy, tile-floored front porch, which is shaded by part of the second story. It has a very nice door, almost certainly oak, with leaded glass inserts. The landscaping is not ostentatious—but you can tell an army of someones was very particular about planting it. The ultimate effect is as tasteful and understated as Extreme Makeover is a whinnying hour of overwrought emotion.

Additionally, the CEO of Pardee Homes, which built the house, tore up the mortgage—that’s traditional on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, too—giving the Leomitis “free and clear title to the residence,” according to court records. The Leomitis weren’t left out of the gift-giving, either: Lokilani and her two kids received their own Ford Focuses and each of the six cars had vanity plates personalized with its owner’s name.

That was it. They’d finally made it—moved on up, got their own little piece of the pie. Their dreams, which, let’s face, are all of our dreams—in this country, new car plus new clothes plus new house equals new life—had come true. Except it wouldn’t be enough. They were somehow flawed, mired somehow in their pasts. Weren’t they? Couldn’t they have done better with all of it? Couldn’t we?

The name-specific vanity plates on those six new Fords didn’t work—didn’t clear up any confusion over whose car was whose. The complaint alleges that Phil Leomiti lied to Charis Higgins once the TV show was in the can, telling her “that Ford Motor Company had given him the authority to select vehicles for himself,” his wife, their son and Charles II and Michael Higgins—meaning “that she would not receive her Ford Focus.”

The complaint also alleges that in February, while everybody was waiting for the episode to air on TV, Lokilani quit her job to live “on the cash and merchandise provided by Extreme Makeover,” while informing Charles II and Michael that they’d be expected to move out of the new home within a year, raising Charles II’s rent from $160 to $300 and pressuring Michael Higgins to quit college and get a job.

After the March 27, 2005 broadcast, the complaint alleges, the situation only got worse for the Higgins kids. Phil Leomiti allegedly told Charis Higgins that her hair smelled, told Charles Higgins II that his clothes smelled and called them “’lazy,’ ’stupid,’ and ‘idiots.’” The Leomiti family allegedly told friends the Higgins were “not taught anything,” had “no common sense,” and “do not know how to clean themselves”. Said the complaint: “Defendant Leomitis made these remarks to insult and offend plaintiffs and convey the message that African-Americans are dirty and smelly.” It got so bad, the complaint alleges, that while pressuring Joshua Higgins to shave his Afro, Phil Leomiti “threw [him] over a chair, causing “scrapes and cuts to his elbow.”
The Leomitis declined to speak to The District, but court documents describing the atmosphere in the Leomiti home make clear they were merely trying to set rules and boundaries.

* * *

Two motions filed by ABC attorneys in January seem to suggest that much of the tension in the Leomiti house—and a big reason the Higgins kids moved out—resulted from the refusal of the Higgins kids to follow house rules established by the Leomiti parents.

“Among these rules was an absolute prohibition of the use of alcohol and drugs in the home,” a Jan. 23 motion by ABC attorneys reads. “Rather than follow the Leomitis rules, the Higgins chose to move out . . . .”

The motion includes portions of Michael Higgins’ deposition in which the now-21-year-old answers questions from an attorney and admits to drinking:

“Q. Did you—during the time that you resided with the Leomitis, did you drink or consume alcoholic beverages?

A. I’ve drank.

Q. During that time period?

A. Yes, I’ve drank.”

Michael Higgins further admits to coming home past the Leomitis’ 2 a.m. curfew after visiting his girlfriend.

Another Jan. 23 motion by ABC attorneys attempts to question Charles Higgins, now 24, about the goals section of a MySpace page he allegedly created:

“Q. Sir, on the second page of exhibit 117, do you see where it says goal you’d most like to achieve this year, it says ‘get rich.’ That’s information you inputted into your my space account, correct?”

But Higgins’ attorney objects—as he does to questions about whether Higgins had ever been drunk or taken drugs—and his client is instructed not to respond.

Nonetheless, the Higgins complaint insists that hostilities resulted from the Leomitis’ plan to harass the kids into leaving the big, new house—and that they implemented its final stage in April, setting in motion a domino effect. First, on about April 10, it says the Leomitis evicted the two eldest Higgins boys, Charles and Michael—alleging that Loki Leomiti went so far as to threaten “Charles Higgins II’s personal safety by warning him that her nephews were in gangs and the she would tell them to beat [him] up.” Three days later, the Leomitis allegedly gave Charis Higgins the choice to stay or leave, and the 17-year-old chose to join her brothers. Joshua Higgins, 16, then a football-playing junior at Downey High, was next. On May 2, the Leomitis allegedly told him that if he didn’t transfer to Santa Fe Springs High, he’d have to leave the house—and so he did.

It was another eight weeks, the complaint alleges, before they turned their attention to Jeremiah Higgins, the youngest at 15—and the only Higgins still living in the Leomiti home. The Leomitis allegedly contacted Charles Higgins II and asked him to “sign a consent form granting legal guardianship rights” to the boy. When he refused, they evicted Jeremiah who—like the other four Higgins children—was not permitted to take all his possessions with him.

By now, it was June 26, 2005—barely four months since the Leomiti-Higgins family had returned from Florida to find their home rebuilt with expensive cars and electronic gifts waiting. It had been less than three months since ABC had aired their episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

Reached at the family home in Santa Fe Springs, Lokilani Leomiti declined to comment on the court case.

But in a filing by Leomiti’s attorney, her pastor, Rex Herndon (ironically, also the Higgins’ pastor), again suggests the Higgins children left the Leomiti house because they didn’t want to follow the rules.

In a statement dated Aug. 2, 2006, Herndon writes: “ . . . they were unwilling to abide by the house rules established at the time they began living in the Leomiti home. This disagreement culminated in the older children leaving the home for several days without notifying the Leomitis. During this time, the younger children remained with the Leomiti family. When Charles and Michael returned to the home, they were confronted by Phil and Loki Leomiti and told they would have to conform to the rules of the family.”

At this point, Herndon writes, the two brothers left the house—but “at no point in my relationship with both families did I ever witness the Leomitis asking or demanding that the younger children leave their home. The younger children eventually did leave, but did so over the objections of the Leomitis and against my own advice.”

* * *

Where was ABC in all this, as its carefully crafted storyline sprouted subplot after subplot? The network did briefly join the family feud in 2005, several months before activating its phalanx of legal talent in response to the lawsuit. In early May, according to the Higgins complaint, Charles II called Extreme Makeover: Home Edition producer Matthew Fisher to tell him the four eldest Higgins kids had been ejected from the Leomiti home—minus their belongings. Fisher “promised to intervene and retrieve” their possessions, but “after one unsuccessful attempt to talk to defendants Leomitis,” the complaint alleges that Fisher simply gave up.

ABC spokewoman Julie Hoover declined to comment on the case to The District, saying only, “We’re extremely proud of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and the positive impact the show has on people’s lives.” Hoover referred me to the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition producers—Lock and Key Productions, where the voice-mail box was full; and Endemol, whose spokesman Chris Diiorio responded to an e-mail from The District by declining to comment.

Perhaps the most telling commentary comes from producer Matt Fisher’s 2005 e-mail to his colleague at Endemol—the one contained in attorney Patrick Mesisca’s declaration filed in January.

“Both parents admit that they let them get out of control but insist that they are just tough parents and the same rules apply to all the kids,” Fisher writes, going on to reference a conversation he had with a social worker, Jennifer Lopez, who was familiar with the kids: “She thinks that the Higgins kids have a hard time talking about things that bother them, and that this is related to the death of their parents. They let things get far worse than they had to, talked about their concerns only amongst themselves, and then blew up one day and left.”

Litigation is looming, but Fisher signs off on a high note. He seems actually optimistic.

“So as usual, the truth lies somewhere in between both sides’ story,” he writes. “I think this can work itself out.” But it hasn’t.

* * *

Let’s be honest with ourselves, with the Leomitis and with the Higginses. It’s not their fault. They’re not deficient. They’re not missing anything—any character quality which could have saved them from themselves. They were simply on the wrong TV show. That’s what’s missing—the denouement, what Americans call closure, like a wreck in the Daytona 500. We need another show—a primetime court case wrap-up, with Diane Sawyer. Or Barbara Walters or Stone Phllips—maybe even ABC’s own John Stossel and John Stossel’s mustache. But someone has to do it. Some brave anchor—and that brave anchor’s stylists—has to step up and put the Leomitis and the Higginses in front of another TV camera. Because honestly, they deserve it.