- Virginia AG Jay Jones has announced his office’s Office of Civil Rights has reached a historic settlement in a fair housing case brought against David Merryman, a landlord in Newport News and Norfolk who is already serving 17 years in prison for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and race-based interference with housing and employment.
- In the criminal proceeding, the court found that Merryman has harassed and abused his tenants by calling them racist, sexist, and homophobic. Additionally, refusing to complete basic repairs, evicting tenants who requested those basic repairs, and in some cases even threatening violence to tenants who simply requested that the landlord fulfill his legal duties.
- The terms of the Office of Civil Rights’ consent order mandate that Merryman never again be a landlord in the Commonwealth, sell all of his rental properties in Virginia within a year, work with the courts to eliminate millions of dollars of eviction filings and judgments from the records of his past tenants, and pay a monetary settlement of $2,250,000 which will be used to compensate tenants who were victims of discriminatory behavior.