Housing discrimination is a very serious issue and when it happens, it leaves a bad stain on all housing providers – and should be dealt with immediately. There are appropriate avenues for reporting housing discrimination issues, which we have shared on this site.
However, as Cincinnati’s WCPO is reporting, a Cincinnati woman is facing federal charges after allegedly making false claims that her landlord had racially discriminated against her. According to the report, prosecutors said the tenant lied to investigators and fabricated messages from her landlord to support her claims that she was being racially discriminated against. She sent the US Attorney’s Office in February several text messages she claimed were from her landlord.
Investigators with The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General claim they were able to conduct a forensic analysis of Pickett’s phone. That analysis, per court documents, revealed data packets on the phone connected to a separate Nokia phone. Those data packets were from applications designed to fake text messages. In addition, analysts said the programs couldn’t fake time codes down to the second, however, and all texts in question had second sections where the time codes were zeroed out.
One of the messages in question;
One text message Pickett claimed came from [the landlord]said: “I told you I’m not getting anything the inspection will fail because I’m not fixing anything or doing anything until you are gone but I told you I want you gone I will not rent African Americans again I don’t know why the previous landlord did sorry I hope you found your place so please stop texting me.”
Click here to read the full story at WCPO.com.
