JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The News4JAX I-TEAM has obtained body camera video showing the initial response from Jacksonville police when a local homeowner discovered strangers had moved into her house in early March.
“You’re going to be investigated for fraud, ok?” the officer is heard telling one of the unwanted guests.
Nearly two months later, the accused squatters are gone, but no one has been arrested.
The house was left in bad shape. Homeowner Patti Peeples reported to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office that the washer and dryer were stolen and that the house incurred thousands of dollars worth of damage.
Peeples was surprised to find people living in her rental property on March 2.
“These people moved in yesterday, and she has a signed lease...paid $3,100 for first and last month rent and pet deposit,” Peeples is heard telling the officer in the video. “She’s very calm and very polite.”
But Peeples hadn’t authorized a lease.
“Basically, I’m 22 years old, and I just moved out of the Hubbard House, the homeless house,” one of the occupants is heard telling the officer. “My mom died two years ago. I’ve been at the Hubbard House for a freaking year. I’ve been saving up...to get an apartment.”
She said she found the house for rent on Zillow, and a man named Christopher gave her a tour and accepted her as a tenant. But Zillow has no record of the house being listed for rent at the time, and the responding officer could find no trace of Christopher.
The officer’s research on the scene did show that one of the women who had moved in claimed she was a victim of a similar rental scam at a nearby property a few months earlier. A neighbor said the couple moved out of that house right around the time they moved into Peeples’ house.
“I want to be straightforward, completely honest with you and frank...you’re being scammed for your home,” the officer is heard telling Peeples.
The officer started asking one of the occupants for more information about the person she claimed had rented her the house. She told him she communicated with Christopher through email. When he pressed her to share their email exchange, she became frustrated and said she’d need to send them from her computer, but she has to get to work.
The officer tells her she and her partner should move out.
“If not, then we’re going to come back and we’re going to take you guys to jail,” the officer said.
But they didn’t move out.
“Technically, I can’t prove it, so she can still be a victim and technically would be a civil ordeal,” the officer then tells the homeowner.
JSO still hasn’t taken them to jail.
“That seems like empty words to me,” Peeples later told News4JAX.
News4JAX Crime and Safety Analyst Lakesha Burton, who spent decades on the force at JSO, said the officer did not have the authority to make an arrest on the spot.
“As frustrating and heartbreaking as this situation is, through the legal lens, squatting is a civil matter. So the officer followed the law,” Burton said.
The unwanted guest also seemed to know the law herself when the officer arrived. She said her father, who sells houses, advised her she could continue living at the house.
“He basically told me that I don’t have to go,” she said.
Peeples said she spent thousands of dollars in legal fees to get them evicted about a month later. She was devastated after she found the interior of the home destroyed.
Peeples said it’s $38,000 worth of damage, a high price on top of an expensive eviction and a lost offer on the house.
“I really felt, naively, that if someone breaks into your house, and doesn’t have legitimate paperwork, that this is a pretty cut-and-dried situation. It’s quite frankly, just the opposite,” Peeples said.
She said she found a deposit slip in the trash once the two moved out, and she’s afraid someone else could get scammed.
“It has become a trend here locally in Duval County over the last two years,” Burton said. “So it’s definitely something that we will have to look at legislatively to change because again, I think that a lot of times...some of the laws they tie the hands of police officers, and this is a civil matter,” Burton said.
That woman who moved into the house previously told the I-TEAM she had been scammed and became combative when News4JAX asked her if she had been squatting.
Burton said it’s not hard at all to find suspects on the run; however, it doesn’t appear any charges have been filed in this case for fraud, theft, or property damage.
A spokesperson from JSO said investigators are following up on the case.