A Clayton County homeowner ended up in jail, charged with criminal trespass after trying to move back into her home occupied by an alleged squatter.
“I spent the night on a mat on a concrete floor in deplorable conditions. While this woman, this squatter slept in my home,” Loletha Hale told Channel 2 consumer investigator Justin Gray.
Clayton County police officers and Sheriff’s deputies were called to the home on Livingston Drive on Dec. 9.
A deputy can be heard on body camera footage telling Hale to look at things from the alleged squatter’s point of view.
“Just think of it from this perspective, though. Everybody isn’t as fortunate as you to have a bed. All the little things, a bed in their house, food in the kitchen,” the deputy said.
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But Hale said this all started in August when she found an alleged squatter in the home 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 a previously evicted tenant’s partner.
“How can she not be squatting when I’ve never had any type of contract relationship with this person?” Hale said.
In sheriff’s department bodycam video from the scene on Dec. 9, Johnson told responding officers, “I was written a citation saying I was a squatter. But a judge signed an order saying that I wasn’t a squatter.”
That started a multi-month court battle with multiple filings, hearings and appeals. Johnson even filed for bankruptcy, listing Hale as her only creditor.
But on Nov. 18, a magistrate judge issued a final judgment in Hale’s favor.
Hale said she thought Johnson had moved out of the home and came over the weekend to start cleaning up the home.
“I returned on Monday to start painting and she had broken the locks at my property,” Hale said.
“She just caught up out of nowhere. She had this guy with him, and I locked the door. I locked the screen door, and he forced himself in telling us to get out,” Johnson told police.
In the incident report, the responding deputy wrote that Hale “executed an illegal eviction and forcibly removed Ms. Johnson’s belongings.”
The incident report states that in cell phone video Hale “could clearly be heard stating ‘leave before I get my gun.’”
Officers on the scene confirmed with court staff that Hale has not obtained a signed writ of possession in order to legally evict a tenant.
Hale admits that, saying she has been waiting for weeks for the document to be signed by a magistrate judge.
“To see that woman walk into my mom’s house while I was in the police car, something is wrong with this picture. Something is inherently wrong with this picture.”
Hale has been charged with criminal trespassing and a misdemeanor count of terroristic threats.
The alleged squatter has not been charged with any crime.
