Dara Daugherty Used Forced Labor in House-Flipping Scheme, City Says

Neighbors say the accused slumlord's unpaid workforce was exploited in "modern-day slavery"

Apr 3, 2024 at 1:14 pm

The house on Virginia Avenue owned by Daugherty, condemned by the city. RYAN KRULL

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Dara Daugherty isn’t just a slumlord, she's also running a "fix and flip" operation that maintains low overhead by forcing people to work for free.

Those are among the new allegations against Daugherty and five family members and associates outlined in new court filings made by the City of St. Louis on Friday as part of a sprawling lawsuit initially filed in January. That suit accuses Daugherty and her crew of running an illegal rooming house operation.

In the most recent filings, attorneys for the city argue that a Tower Grove East property owned by Daugherty has been uniquely important to the fix-and-flip scheme. They are asking the judge to order her to immediately cease operations at the property and clean it up — and to stop impersonating city officials while they’re at it.

The latest filing says that Daugherty and company are attempting to flip some of the dozens of properties they own. But instead of hiring contractors or taking a DIY approach, they’re using impoverished tenants who “cannot pay rent in the usual way." The city says these individuals are marginalized sex workers, veterans or people with disabilities or addictions who are "required" to work on Daugherty's fixer-uppers.

This is where the house with the Dutch gambrel roof on Virginia Avenue comes into play. As the RFT detailed earlier this year, it’s a place around which the effects of Daugherty's illegal rooming house scheme have been particularly acutely felt. The latest filings from the city say Daugherty had until recently used the home to house her ad-hoc, unpaid workforce. (As of this morning, neighbors of the property say no one is currently living there.)

Neighbors who came forward to the City Counselor's Office in the wake of the initial suit being filed have described the treatment of the tenants on Virginia Avenue as akin to “indentured servitude” and “modern-day slavery,” the city’s legal filing says.

Neighbors have observed the house’s tenants being picked up early in the morning and then being returned late at night “exhausted and in pain.” Neighbors have also said that utilities have sometimes been turned off at the property as a punishment for the workers, who the city's court filings say are sometimes paid in “small amounts of drugs.”

click to enlarge

Booking photo of Dara Daugherty, sued today by the city.

Courtesy SLMPD

A past booking photo of Dara Daugherty, who the City of St. Louis sued earlier this year for being part of a massive illegal operation.

And, as the RFT has reported regarding Daugherty’s tenants at other properties, the city alleges that people living at the Virginia Avenue house turned their government assistance money over to Daugherty. On Virginia, that’s in addition to having to the residents having to work for her.

The dilapidated state of the house caused "alarming risks to public health," the city says, citing stagnant water, foul odors and rodents who burrowed into adjacent property, turning neighbors' lawns into "Swiss cheese."

The city's latest filing asks a judge to issue a preliminary injunction forcing Daugherty and her associates to immediately stop using unpaid, coerced labor as well as to clean up the nuisances and sewage at the Virginia property. If the judge were to issue such an injunction, the Daughertys would have to comply with it even as their case continues to work its way through the courts.

Lawyers for the city are also asking the judge to order the Daughertys to stop impersonating city employees, which they allegedly did as recently as last Wednesday. The filing alleges that individuals dressed as municipal workers arrived at the Virginia Avenue house, pulled down the plywood that had been used to board up, removed appliances from the house, and drove away with them in a pickup truck. Those people, the filing says, were actually working for Daugherty.

The suit also alleges that, in the past month, Dara Daugherty's erstwhile husband and co-defendant Keith Mack was seen at various properties involved in the rooming house scheme. "On March 4….Mack visited several properties in an apparent attempt to terrorize the tenants by banging on their doors, threatening them and screaming at them while brandishing a firearm," the filings say.