United States Court of Appeals 

For the Seventh Circuit 

Chicago, Illinois 60604 

Submitted August 29, 2019*

Decided September 5, 2019 

Before 

DIANE P. WOOD, Chief Judge 

MICHAEL Y. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge 

AMY J. ST. EVE, Circuit Judge

No. 19-1610 

VICTOR WAKLEY, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

v. 

CITY OF INDIANAPOLIS, et al., 

 Defendants-Appellees.

 Appeal from the United States District 

Court for the Southern District of Indiana, 

Indianapolis Division. 

No. 1:16-cv-884-WTL-DLP 

William T. Lawrence, 

Judge. 

O R D E R 

Victor Wakley alleges that by evicting him from a building, the City of 

Indianapolis and others conspired to deprive him of property—a lease interest that he 

supposedly acquired in 2016—without due process. See 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district 

court dismissed Wakley’s claims against every defendant except the City because 

Wakley had not plausibly alleged that they conspired with the City. See FED. R. CIV. P. 

12(b)(6). Later, the court entered summary judgment for the City because Wakley did 

 

*

 We have agreed to decide this case without oral argument because the briefs 

and record adequately present the facts and legal arguments, and oral argument would 

not significantly aid the court. FED. R. APP. P. 34(a)(2)(C). 

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION 

To be cited only in accordance with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 
No. 19-1610 Page 2 

not furnish evidence of a valid lease interest. Because Wakley neither plausibly stated a 

claim for conspiracy nor has evidence of a valid lease interest, we affirm. 

Wakley’s suit arises from a series of property transactions concerning the Bunker 

Building in Indianapolis. In February 2012, the City conveyed the Bunker Building to 

Southeast Neighborhood Development, Inc. (SEND). That month, SEND leased the 

Bunker Building to a nonprofit called The Changed Life, Inc., which offered job training 

to ex-offenders. The Changed Life, however, never paid rent, so SEND ended that lease 

in July 2012. In 2014, The Changed Life was administratively dissolved. In April 2016, 

Wakley, who had no connection to this dissolved entity, incorporated a new 

corporation and used the same name. He later asked the Indiana Secretary of State to 

reinstate the original Changed Life corporation in December 2016. 

In September 2012, SEND leased the building to an organization run by Wakley. 

When that organization defaulted on rent payments in November 2014, SEND 

terminated the organization’s lease. But Wakley and his organization did not vacate the 

building. One year later, in November 2015, SEND conveyed the Bunker Building back 

to the City. Then, in March 2016, the City informed Wakley that he had no legal right to 

occupy space in the building, because SEND had not assigned to the City any current 

lease with Wakley. See Charles Downey Family Ltd. P’ship v. S & V Liquor, Inc., 880 N.E.2d 

322, 328 (Ind. Ct. App. 2008) (property owner may treat tenant whose lease term has 

ended as trespasser). Thus, the City explained, Wakley needed to vacate the building. 

Later that year, two City police officers “forced” Wakley out of the building and 

changed the locks. 

In response, Wakley filed this suit. He alleges that the City, SEND, and others 

conspired to deprive him of his property interest in the Bunker Building. He alleges that 

he acquired this interest through a sublease with The Changed Life in March 2016. That 

was one month before he incorporated a business with that name and nine months 

before he asked Indiana’s Secretary of State to reinstate the dissolved The Changed Life 

corporation in December 2016. The defendants allegedly hatched their conspiracy 

between June 2012 and December 2014: as he put it, “Many meetings took place and 

emails were exchanged” to “develop an elaborate plan” for the City to take control of 

the Bunker Building so that a local group could secure federal funding to develop the 

land, thereby violating Wakley’s right to remain there. 

Wakley lost in the district court in two phases. First, the non-City defendants 

moved to dismiss the complaint. The district court dismissed them because Wakley had 

not plausibly alleged that they had conspired against Wakley. The court observed that 
No. 19-1610 Page 3 

the defendants allegedly conspired from June 2012 to December 2014 to deprive Wakley 

of a property interest that, according to Wakley, he did not acquire until 2016. So 

Wakley’s conspiracy assertion was factually “impossible.” Next, the City moved for 

summary judgment, and the district court granted that motion. Wakley could not show 

that he had an interest in the building, the court explained, because The Changed Life 

did not have a lease with SEND when it supposedly entered into a sublease with 

Wakley in March 2016. Moreover, the court added, the original The Changed Life no 

longer existed in March 2016, and so an entity with that name could not have entered 

into a sublease with Wakley at that time. 

Wakley first generally contests the dismissal of his conspiracy claim against the 

non-City defendants, but the district court properly dismissed them because Wakley 

has not alleged a plausible basis for relief against them. See FED. R. CIV. P. 8(a); Ashcroft 

v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009); West Bend Mut. Ins. Co. v. Schumacher, 844 F.3d 670, 675 

(7th Cir. 2016). “Threadbare recitals of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory 

statements do not suffice.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. But that is all that Wakley alleges: the 

defendants “conspired” to “develop an elaborate plan” through “[m]any meetings” and 

“emails” between 2012 and 2014 to deprive him of property “without due process.” 

That “unsupported legal conclusion,” Redd v. Nolan, 663 F.3d 287, 292 (7th Cir. 2011), is 

merely a legally insufficient “suspicion that persons adverse to [him] had joined a 

conspiracy against him,” Cooney v. Rossiter, 583 F.3d 967, 971 (7th Cir. 2009); see also Bell 

Atlantic Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 553–56 (2007). In addition to its conclusory 

nature, the assertion is also implausible on its face. As the district court noted, the 

conspiracy to deprive Wakley of his sublease ended in 2014, two years before Wakley 

allegedly acquired the sublease in 2016. 

Wakley also argues that summary judgment for the City was improper on his 

claim that the City deprived him of property without due process. A due-process claim 

requires the deprivation of a property interest, such as a leasehold. See Bd. of Regents of 

State Colls. v. Roth, 408 U.S. 564, 569–70, 576–78 (1972); Mid-American Waste Sys., Inc., v. 

City of Gary, 49 F.3d 286, 289 (7th Cir. 1995). Wakley contends that he acquired that kind 

of interest through a sublease from The Changed Life in March 2016, and the City 

deprived him of it without due process by removing him from the Bunker Building and 

locking him out. But Wakley’s argument falls short. First, The Changed Life had no 

property interest in the building in March 2016 to sublease. The record shows that in 

2012 SEND ended its lease with The Changed Life, and Wakley has supplied no 

evidence of a valid sublease afterward. Second, it is undisputed that The Changed Life 

no longer existed when it supposedly subleased to Wakley in March 2016. Wakley has 
No. 19-1610 Page 4 

pointed us to no case—nor have we found one—where a nonexistent entity could 

transfer a property interest. 

 We have considered Wakley’s other arguments, but none merits discussion. 

The judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.