HAMPTON, Va. (WAVY) — A Peninsula landlord used threats, racist language and sometimes violence as he defrauded multiple Black tenants, according to a new indictment from a federal grand jury.
58-year-old David Merryman, who owns more than 60 rental properties on the Peninsula, has been charged with 10 counts of wire fraud, four counts of interfering with housing rights, two counts of interstate communications with threats to injure, six counts of theft of government money, four counts of making false statements to HUD, and four counts of aggravated identity theft, the Department of Justice announced Thursday.
The indictment, which lists four tenants as well as a local businessman and Newport News city official among the victims, alleges Merryman would repeatedly harass his tenants with racist and graphic slurs, including comments about slavery and the Black Lives Matter movement.
He’d also use threats to kill or injure tenants, and in at least two occasions assaulted them, the indictment says. One time he struck a tenant in the face with the shovel, and on another he attack a tenant with the blade of a chainsaw while the chainsaw wasn’t turned on.
Additionally, Merryman also orchestrated a scheme to both defraud tenants and the government, the indictment reads, falsely representing the condition of his properties to obtain housing-assistance payments from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, and fraudulent applications for rent-relief benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic.
For the latter, he would steal his tenants’ identities and forge their signatures, the indictment says, while simultaneously evicting tenants for unpaid rent.
He would also require tenants to pay significant upfront fees for blighted and sometimes uninhabitable properties that he didn’t intend to improve.
“Merryman’s conduct was part of a pattern in which he would demand significant initial fees or deposits from prospective renters and then subject those same tenants to racist and discriminatory practices, in part so they would leave the property, which would allow Merryman to start the cycle again with new tenants,” the DOJ says.
The indictment comes nearly two years after Merryman was arrested by U.S. Marshals for failing to pay nearly $46,000 in back wages to employees at his landscaping company in Newport News.
In his new federal case, Merryman faces a mandatory minimum sentence of two years for each count of aggravated identity theft, and could get up to one year to 20 years in prison on each of the remaining counts.