A Clayton County homeowner ended up in jail charged with criminal trespass after trying to move back into her home where an alleged squatter lived.
“I spent the night on a mat on a concrete floor in appalling conditions. While this woman, this squatter, was sleeping in my house,” Loletha Hale said Channel 2 consumer researcher Justin Gray.
Clayton County police officers and deputies were called to the home on Livingston Drive on December 9.
In body camera footage, a deputy can be heard telling Hale to look at things from the alleged squatter's point of view.
“Just look at it from this perspective. Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bed. All the little things, a bed in their house, food in the kitchen,” the deputy said.
TRENDING STORIES:
But Hale said this all started in August when she found an alleged squatter in the house and called police.
Police cited the alleged squatter, Sakemeyia Johnson, using the new Georgia Squatter Reform Act.
But Clayton County Magistrate Court Judge Latrevia Lates-Johnson ruled that “Sakemeyia Johnson is not a squatter” because she is related to the partner of a previously evicted tenant.
“How can she not squat when I've never had any kind of contractual relationship with this person?” Hale said.
In sheriff's department bodycam video from the Dec. 9 crime scene, Johnson told officers, “I was issued a citation saying I was a squatter. But a judge signed an order saying I was not a squatter.”
That was the start of a months-long lawsuit with multiple files, hearings and appeals. Johnson even filed for bankruptcy, listing Hale as her sole creditor.
But on November 18, a magistrate judge entered a final judgment in Hale's favor.
Hale said she believed Johnson had left the house and came over the weekend to clean up the house.
“I came back on Monday to start painting and she had broken the locks on my property,” Hale said.
“She just came up behind out of nowhere. She had a man with her and I locked the door. I locked the screen door and he forced himself to tell us to get out,” Johnson told police.
In the incident report, the responding deputy wrote that Hale “conducted an illegal eviction and forcibly removed Ms. Johnson's belongings.”
The incident report states that on cell phone video, Hale “could be clearly heard saying 'leave before I get my weapon.'”
Officers on scene, along with court staff, confirmed that Hale did not obtain a signed possession order to legally evict a tenant.
Hale admits that and says she has been waiting weeks for the document to be signed by a magistrate judge.
“To see that woman walking into my mother's house while I was in the police car, there's something wrong with this photo. There is something inherently wrong with this image.”
Hale has been charged with criminal trespass and terroristic threats counts.
The alleged squatter has not been charged with any crime.
