A Virginia landlord is facing federal charges on allegations of defrauding the government and his tenants while also subjecting them to discriminatory behavior.
David Merryman, owner of 60 properties in Newport News and Hampton, is also accused of using threats, racially offensive language, and physical force against them. His indictment includes four tenants, a businessman, and a local city official.
Officials alleged the 58-year-old made comments against Black renters, some referencing slavery and Black Lives Matter. According to the Department of Justice, he hit one of the tenants in the face with a shovel and wielded a detached chainsaw blade against another.
The December 2022 attack was against a man identified as J.P. — a tenant at a single-family home in Hampton who wanted Merryman to fix his water heater, per the indictment. When he first moved into the property just a few months before, J.P. noticed it was “infested” with cockroaches, lacked appliances, and had black mold. When he reached out about the promised repairs prior to his arrival, Merryman allegedly called J.P., who is married to a Black woman, a n****r lover.
A Black man, listed as G.G. in the indictment, also noticed an array of issues when he moved into his home in October 2022. Similar to J.P., Merryman allegedly said he was going to fix the issues when he signed the lease and requested payments ahead of time.
G.G. sent several payments through Cash App, and when he asked about the repairs, Merryman allegedly said: “You people, man, it’s always the Black ones that got to have the problem with moving in,” according to court documents. On two separate occasions, Merryman pretended he was going to shoot him with a gun.
Another former tenant, Samantha Feely, called him “the slumlord from hell” and described her experience as “a nightmare” during an interview with WTKR. When Feely couldn’t pay her rent on time amid the COVID-19 pandemic, she received a disturbing text from him.
“He called me a N****r lover and told me that I didn’t pay my bills like other white people do,” she told the outlet. “I had Black roommates, so that was a problem with him.”
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