Racist Virginia landlord sentenced 17 years for identity theft

Source: Grace Cary / Getty

As 2024 comes to a close BOSSIP wanted to remind you that hatred of Black skin doesn’t take a holiday.

According to the United States Attorney’s Office Eastern District of Virginia, a white 59-year-old landlord named David L. Merryman has been sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted of wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and race-based interference with housing and employment.

“David Merryman deliberately targeted families of color with limited means and housing options.” said Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Easter District of Virginia. “Landlords have a responsibility under the law to uphold the housing rights and protect the human dignity of the people to whom they rent. Mr. Merryman failed to uphold that responsibility and is paying a heavy price for his for racial discrimination and fraud.”

Merryman used the COVID-19 pandemic to file fraudulent rent relief applications on behalf of his tenants by forging their signatures. As a result he received “significant sums of rent relief” without telling tenants. It was found that on numerous occasions, Merryman mocked Black tenants with comments about slavery, used racist slurs, used force, harassment, and made threats of violence against them.

For example, a tenant, identified as L.G., made requests for necessary repairs to the home she was renting, to which Merryman repeatedly made racially derogatory responses. In April 2019, Merryman threatened to turn L.G. and her children into “potting soil.” L.G. obtained a protective order against Merryman, who then responded by, among other things, parking his vehicle just outside the prohibited radius of the order and intimidating L.G. and her family.

 

According to Law & Crime, there was a 2023 incident in which Merryman and a group of men walked into a tenants backyard and threatened them with a brick. Upon believing that one of the men with the tenant was armed, Merryman fled the property waving the brick yelling, “you Black motherf—ers” and yelled “f—ing n—ers, f—ing n—ers.”

Hopefully, Lord willing, David Merryman is treated to months and years of painful prison hospitality.