John Jefferson
David Merryman, a landlord in Virginia, is headed to prison for renting distressed properties and stealing COVID relief funds from Black tenants (WTKR/YouTube).
A 59-year-old Virginia man was sentenced to nearly two decades in prison for harassing Black tenants with racial slurs and stealing their identities to obtain COVID relief funds.
David L. Merryman, who owned more than 60 rental properties in Newport News and Hampton, will spend the next 17 years in prison for wire fraud, aggravated identity theft, and race-based interference with housing and employment.
The properties were mostly located in low income areas and he primarily rented to poor Black tenants who had nowhere else to live, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia said in a press release. The homes were in awful condition with holes in the ceilings and walls, leaks and rodent activity, among other issues, according to prosecutors.
Merryman, who is white, also harassed his tenants and hurled racial insults at them while defrauding them by forcing them to pay repeated security deposits. He took the money but never made the necessary repairs.
In October 2022, he rented a home to a Black man that had no working stove or refrigerator and a bathroom tub that had a hole in it. Merryman promised he would fix the issues and charged an “initial deposit” of $1,000 and a “move-in deposit” of $1,600 about two weeks later, an indictment said. He then required the man to pay a “combination of rent/deposit” of $1,150. But when the tenant requested Merryman to fix the issues, the landlord responded “you people, man, it’s always the Black ones that got to have the problem moving in”
Then in February 2023, Merryman and a group of men walked into the backyard of the property unannounced. When the tenant confronted Merryman, he became angry. The landlord threatened the man with a brick. Merryman then asked one of the men he was with if he had a gun on him and the man reached behind his back as if he were armed, the affidavit said. As he was leaving, Merryman waved the brick around and said “you Black motherf—ers” and yelled “f—ing n—ers, f—ing n—ers.”
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Prosecutors said Merryman followed the pattern in “fraudulently obtaining large initial payments in the form of security deposits, prepaid rent, and other fees for rental homes that were in poor repair” between 2019 and January. He then would try to evict them “as quickly as possible” so he could hatch the same scheme with new tenants.
“David Merryman deliberately targeted families of color with limited means and housing options.” Jessica D. Aber, U.S. Attorney for the Easter District of Virginia, said in a press release. “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.”
During the pandemic, when federal and state lawmakers released relief funds for renters, prosecutors said Merryman forged the signatures of some of his tenants so he could pocket the cash. He then evicted or threatened to evict those very same people. In one case, a tenant had faithfully paid her rent from 2015 until she was laid off from her job in 2021 after she was hospitalized for medical problems.
Merryman forged the woman’s signature on an application to Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development to receive about $15,100 in rent relief benefits. While the woman was still in the hospital, Merryman evicted her and had a crew throw away all of her belongings inside the house and towed her car.
“For years, David Merryman used his position of power as a landlord and his tenant’s economic vulnerability to make a profit,” Brian Dugan, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office, said in a statement. “He not only sought out tenants with few housing options to rent, but then continued to racially harass and subject them to unsuitable living conditions. His victims were oftentimes mothers or fathers who just wanted to keep a roof over their family’s head.”
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