Landlord Faces Civil Rights, Fraud Charges, For Actions Against Tenants
A Virginia landlord is facing 30 federal charges for his behavior toward tenants, including civil rights charges over alleged racist tirades.
Landlord David Merryman is also accused of fraud, identity theft, making threats, interfering with housing rights, and stealing from the federal government.
Tenant Harassment
Merryman owns approximately 60 rental properties in Hampton and Newport News, Virginia, and rented primarily to low-income African Americans.
According to court documents, Merryman repeatedly harassed tenants, threatened to kill or injure them, and threatened eviction. The threats were “often highly graphic and included references to slavery and mocking comments about the Black Lives Matter movement.”
In 2021, tenant Joseph Robertson told a Virginia news channel about living in a Merryman property.
"Different threats, different racial slurs, one thing after another you know, always something with him," said Robertson.
Prosecutors say the threats turned into physical altercations on at least two occasions with Merryman striking a tenant in the face with a shovel and striking another with a blade from a non-running chainsaw.
Fraud Charges
Merryman is also accused of various fraud charges.
Prosecutors say Merryman made false representations about the condition of his rental properties to receive federally funded assistance he was not entitled to.
In addition, Merryman submitted fraudulent applications for rent-relief benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, by allegedly stealing their identifies and forging their signatures, netting him more than $77,000.
“Merryman obtained significant sums of rent relief without telling the tenants, all the while evicting, or seeking to evict, the tenants for unpaid rent,” a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Virginia stated.
Merryman is also accused of defrauding tenants by obtaining money and property from them under false pretenses. Prosecutors say the suspect made “false representations that he would repair his properties or repay tenants for repairs they made, which served to induce tenants to pay him significant upfront fees for neglected, even uninhabitable, properties that Merryman never intended to improve.”
He would also demand initial fees or deposits from prospective renters and then subject those same tenants to racist and discriminatory practices, so he could rent the property again.
Other Legal Actions
This is not Merryman’s first brush with the federal and state officials over his business practices.
In 2014, the Department of Labor (DOL) acted against Merryman for not paying his employees at a landscaping company he owned. That case was resolved, but the pattern continued, and DOL brought a civil contempt charge in 2019.
He was sent to jail for contempt in 2022 until the payments were made.
The State of Virginia also filed an $8 million housing discrimination case against Merryman. That case is scheduled to go to trial in Newport News in February.