Local News

Dara Daugherty Faces Angry Neighbors in Court as City Seeks Injunction

Published

1 year ago

May 1, 2024

[ad_1]

For the first time since the City of St. Louis accused her of masterminding a massive illegal rooming house scheme, Dara Daugherty took the stand in court yesterday, telling a judge that she no longer owns one of her portfolio’s most squalid holdings.

Daugherty testified she recently sold the home with the Dutch gambrel roof on Virginia Avenue, a nuisance property that was the bane of its neighbors and where the city claims Daugherty housed an ad-hoc, unpaid labor force that worked on her slum empire’s “fixer-upper” properties.

Yesterday’s hearing came as part of the city’s ongoing civil lawsuit against Daugherty and five of her family members and associates who are accused of running an illegal rooming house scheme that spanned 39 properties across nine south city neighborhoods. At issue yesterday was the city’s request that Circuit Court Judge Judge Jason Sengheiser order Daugherty to cease operations at the Virginia Avenue property and clean it up.

Sengheiser was still weighing the request as of press time.

In court, Daugherty’s attorney Elkin Kistner argued that an injunction was totally unnecessary given that his client no longer owns the house and the new owner has begun cleaning it up. He alluded to the fact that this wasn’t the only one of her properties she’s sold, as she’d come to the conclusion in recent months it might be a good idea to let a few holdings go.

Daugherty testified that in the past few weeks she sold the Virginia Avenue house to Patrick Timmerman for $75,000. Timmerman appears to be the same man who was arrested for credit card fraud in 2009. click to enlarge RYAN KRULL The house on Virginia Avenue owned by Daugherty was condemned by the city. She has now sold the property.

Daugherty testified that she did not know Timmerman prior to the sale, an assertion Assistant City Counselor Toni Mullenix seemed dubious of. In her cross-examination of Daugherty, Mullenix asked repeatedly about Daugherty’s use of LLCs, which the city has argued in the past were used to obfuscate many of the true owners of properties involved in the scheme.

Prior to taking the stand, Daugherty spent the better part of the afternoon listening in the courtroom as Virginia Avenue neighbors, police officers with the city’s Problem Properties Division, and even one of her former tenants took the stand against her.

Daugherty, wearing a gray short-sleeved shirt, occasionally wrote notes on a pad of paper but largely showed no emotion, even as she was accused of overseeing a situation akin to “modern-day slavery” at the Virginia Avenue house. On the table in front of her, there was what appeared to be a Louis Vuitton purse and wallet — the latter of which sported what looked a lot like a rubber-banded stack of cash peeking through the open zipper.

The neighbors’ testimony mirrored what has been reported publicly and what the city has included in their various court filings. The city has accused Daugherty of renting rooms in condemned houses to members of the city’s most vulnerable populations, in many cases forcing those tenants to work for her to earn the roof over their heads, even as in some instances Daugherty pilfered their government aid.

“It seemed like modern-day slavery to me. They were working for her and not getting paid,” said neighbor Joseph Goodman when he took the stand yesterday. “It was hard to see people living in that condition.”

Testified neighbor Patricia Vaught, “It’s hard for me to believe someone was comfortable renting and taking money from people living in those conditions.”

In her testimony, Brittany Marquardt described the Virginia Avenue house right next door to her as being in “a state of disrepair.” Tenants there collected metal for scrapping and stored a lot of that metal in the backyard. At one point, a tenant threw a concrete birdbath into the street and sex toys into a neighboring yard.

Marquardt described the house’s basement having seven inches of standing water in it, creating the odor of “a musty cave” that, as temperatures have warmed, has morphed into an odor “more moldy and menacing.” (At one point, according to Goodman’s testimony, Daugherty’s father-in-law lived in that basement.)

Also taking the stand was Valenda Spurlin, one of Daugherty’s former tenants who lived at a different property but who indicated that in the past three months Daugherty tried to get her to move into the Virginia Avenue house.

Spurlin gave her testimony by raising either a green or red hand to indicate yes or no to questions put to her. She had her voice box removed five years ago due to cancer and cannot speak.

Spurlin indicated that Daugherty had aided her and her fiancé in applying for state rental reimbursement and that Daugherty even drove them to the proper place to do so. Daughtery promised that the couple would get more than $2,000, but that money never came to Spurlin or her fiancé. The checks from the state were mailed to Daugherty’s address in Brentwood.

Asked about this by Mullenix, Daugherty said they had to be mailed to her house because Spurlin was homeless at the time — this, despite the checks being for rental assistance.

At one point, Mullenix showed Spurlin what appeared to be a mugshot for Patrick Timmerman — the man Daugherty sold the Virginia Avenue house to, whom Daugherty claimed she had never previously met. Mullenix asked Spurlin if she’d ever seen this man before. Spurlin indicated she had, though she did not know his name.

Officers Louis Naes and Erin Hein, both with the department’s Problem Properties Division, testified as well. Naes said he was familiar with numerous properties belonging to Daugherty, saying they are “all in disarray.” Hein called the conditions of Daugherty’s property on Virginia “deplorable.”

Neighbors of the Virginia Avenue property said on the stand that there had been some superficial improvements as of late, primarily that some of the debris that once cluttered the backyard had been removed. However, all seemed to agree there was much work left to be done.

For instance, Goodman noted that a wooden pallet was now being used as a makeshift fence on the property. The foul odor still lingers and is only getting worse as the weather warms.

At one point, Kistner showed Marquardt a recent photo of the property, which he hoped would demonstrate it had recently gotten some much-needed TLC.

She replied, “The smell is not coming through in your photo.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Fenton Man Charged in Sword Attack on Roommate

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

A warrant is out for a Fenton man’s arrest after he allegedly attacked his roommate with a sword.

Police say that on Sunday, Angelus Scott spoke openly about “slicing his roommate’s head” before he grabbed a sword, raised it up and then swung it down at the roommate.

The roommate grabbed Scott’s hand in time to prevent injury. When police arrived at the scene, they found the weapon used in the assault.

The sword in question was a katana, which is a Japanese sword recognizable for its curved blade.

This isn’t the first time a samurai-style sword has been used to violent effect in St. Louis. In 2018, a man hearing voices slaughtered his ex-boyfriend with a samurai sword. His mother said he suffered from schizoaffective disorder.

As for Scott, 35, the St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office was charged yesterday with two felonies, assault first degree and armed criminal action. The warrant for his arrest says he is to be held on $200,000 bond.

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

Caught on Video, Sheriff Says He’s Ready to ‘Turn It All Over’ to Deputy

Published

1 year ago

May 22, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

Video of St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts taken by a former deputy suggests that the sheriff has a successor in mind to hand the reins of the department over to, even as Betts is in an increasingly heated campaign for reelection.

“I ain’t here for all this rigmarole,” Betts says in the video while seated behind his desk at the Carnahan Courthouse. “The Lord sent me here to turn this department around and I’m doing the best I can and I think I’ve done a good job. I’ve got about eight months and I’m going to qualify for my fourth pension.”

He goes on, “Right now I can walk up out of here and live happily ever after and forget about all this…and live like a king.”

The sheriff then says his wife has been in Atlanta looking at houses and that the other deputy in the room, Donald Hawkins, is someone Betts has been training “to turn it all over to him.”

Asked about the video, Betts tells the RFT, “My future plans are to win reelection on August 6th by a wide margin and to continue my mission as the top elected law enforcement official to make St. Louis safer and stronger. Serving the people of St. Louis with integrity, honor and professional law enforcement qualifications is a sacred responsibility, and I intend to complete that mission.”

The video of Betts was taken by Barbara Chavers, who retired from the sheriff’s office in 2016 after 24 years of service. Chavers now works security at Schnucks at Grand and Gravois. Betts’ brother Howard works security there, too.

Chavers tells the RFT that she was summoned to Betts’ office last week after Betts’ brother made the sheriff aware that she was supporting Montgomery. It was no secret: Chavers had filmed a Facebook live video in which she said she was supporting Betts’ opponent Alfred Montgomery in the election this fall. “Make the judges safe,” she says in the video, standing in front of a large Montgomery sign on Gravois Avenue. “They need a sheriff who is going to make their courtrooms safe.”

In his office, even as Chavers made clear she was filming him, Betts told Chavers he was “flabbergasted” and “stunned” she was supporting Montgomery.

“I don’t know what I did that would make you go against the preacher man,” he says, referring to himself. He then refers to Montgomery as “ungodly.”

Betts goes on to say that not long ago, he was walking in his neighborhood on St. Louis Avenue near 20th Street when suddenly Montgomery pulled up in his car and, according to Betts, shouted, “You motherfucker, you this, you that. You’re taking my signs down.”

Montgomery tells the RFT that he’s never interacted with Betts outside of candidate forums and neighborhood meetings.

“I don’t think anyone with good sense would do something like that to a sitting sheriff,” Montgomery says.

Montgomery has had campaign signs missing and on at least two occasions has obtained video of people tearing them down. (Chavers notes that the sign that she filmed her original Facebook video in front of is itself now missing.)

One man who lives near Columbus Square says that he recently put out two Montgomery signs, which later went missing. “If they keep taking them, I’ll keep putting them up,” he said.

Betts says he has nothing to do with the missing signs. In the video Chavers filmed in Betts’ office, Betts says that his campaign isn’t in a spot where it needs to resort to tearing down opponents’ signs.

“If you sit here long enough, a man is getting ready to come across the street from City Hall bringing me $500, today,” Betts says. “I’m getting that kind of support. I don’t need to tear down signs.”

[ad_2]

Source link

Local News

St. Louis to Develop First Citywide Transportation Plan in Decades

Published

1 year ago

May 21, 2024

Natural Bridge

[ad_1]

The City of St. Louis is working to develop its first citywide mobility plan in decades, Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office announced Tuesday. This plan seeks to make it easier for everyone — drivers, pedestrians, bikers and public transit users — to safely commute within the city.

The plan will bring together other city projects like the Brickline Greenway, Future64, the MetroLink Green Line, and more, “while establishing new priorities for a safer, more efficient and better-maintained transportation network across the City,” according to the release.

The key elements in the plan will be public engagement, the development of a safety action plan, future infrastructure priorities and transportation network mapping, according to Jones’ office.

The overarching goals are to create a vision for citywide mobility, plan a mixture of short and long-term mobility projects and to develop improved communication tools with the public to receive transportation updates. In recent years, both people who use public transit and cyclists have been outspoken about the difficulties — and dangers — of navigating St. Louis streets, citing both cuts to public transit and traffic violence.

To garner public input and participation for the plan, Jones’ office said there will be community meetings, focus groups and a survey for residents to share their concerns. The city will also be establishing a Community Advisory Committee. Those interested in learning more should check out at tmp-stl.com/

“Everyone deserves to feel safe when getting around St. Louis, whether they’re driving, biking, walking or taking public transit,” Jones said in a news release. “Creating a comprehensive transportation and mobility plan allows us to make intentional and strategic investments so that moving around St. Louis for jobs, education, and entertainment becomes easier, safer and more enjoyable.”

[ad_2]

Source link