Woman fights to take back house stolen in deed-fraud scam

NY Post ^ | 10/12/14 | By Amber Jamieson

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Woman fights to take back house stolen in deed-fraud scam

By Amber Jamieson

It’s a case of grand theft house. A Manhattan woman claims an ex-con stole her family home in Queens by filing a phony deed with the city and moving in. Now Jennifer Merin is battling in court to remove the convicted armed robber, Darrell Beatty, 49, and his sons, Darrell Kash Beatty, 25, and DeShaun Beatty, 22, from the three-bedroom Tudor she says they snatched in February. “It just devastates me,” Merin, an online film critic, said as she looked at cherished family heirlooms — photos, a circa-1920 bed frame, vintage suitcases, classic television sets, a smashed 6-foot vase — piled like trash in the garage of the Laurelton home. Merin said her Russian and Ukrainian grandparents moved into the new row house on 141st Avenue in 1931 and raised her mother and her mother’s two siblings there.

[conservative98]

Now we are to decide what she should have done with her personal property?
Your comment it fit for DU, not FR.

What should she have done? Try not leaving it unattended and unseen for several months at a time and have someone check up on it on a regular basis. Quite frankly she was nieve and became a target. My comment is perfect for FR. Don't rely on the govn't or the police to protect you. She should have taken more personal responsibility and taken better precautions and at least then she would have found out about it a few days after instead of several months.

[conservative98]

A spike in her February water bill, which she got on May 27, first alerted her to illegal occupants. She called 911, but when cops went to the house, Beatty told them he was the legal resident.

She went to investigate herself and was “horrified” to find the locks changed and her car missing. Peering through the windows, she saw most of her possessions were also gone.

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Front door needs paint and the brickwork is in disrepair. It doesn’t look lived in and may be way the fraudsters chose her home. Also I would have gotten a security alarm from Mark Levin for the home and garage. Then she would have found out immediately when the locks were changed. All before her car and stuff went missing, instead of months later by looking at the utility bill from the squatters. The city was wrong on the deed, but she also left her home vulnerable while she was away which is how all of this happened.