The city of St. Louis today dropped a bombshell of a lawsuit against six Missouri residents who the city says are running a massive illegal rooming house operation involving 39 properties spanning at least nine south city neighborhoods.
Attorneys with the City Counselor's Office say that Dara Daugherty and five other named defendants prey on vulnerable people by renting out portions of homes that are condemned or otherwise not permitted to be run as rooming houses.
For these small areas, the renters pay between $500 and $1,000, usually in cash. Many of the rooms lack running water, heat or electricity.
In some cases the city has boarded up the properties, but the illegal landlords allegedly remove the boards and continue to rent out space inside.
Though the suit does not specify how many tenants Daugherty and the others rented to, with discrete spaces in 39 properties being rented out over multiple years, the number is almost certainly in the hundreds. The suit notes that though Daugherty had no legal right to collect rent from them, she still sued for nonpayment.
Filed in St. Louis Circuit Court, the 57-page lawsuit also accuses Keith Mack, Dack Daugherty, Daniel Mcafee (who also goes by Daniel Daugherty), Steven Heinrichs and Joseph Witthaus as being part of the operation. All are Missouri residents. Dara Daughetry resides in Brentwood, Mack in the city, Witthaus in Imperial. All are accused of operating public nuisances and unjust enrichment.
The 39 properties operated by the defendants have been the sites of shootings, carjackings, stabbings, carjackings, fights and even a kidnapping. "Daugherty turns a blind eye to rampant drug use at the Properties, and multiple suspected overdose deaths have occurred at the Properties as a result," the suit says.
The lawsuit says that Dara Daugherty has had as many as 38 active warrants for her arrest stemming from building code violations. But even though she is occasionally arrested, she has told police that the brief stints she spends in jail before bonding out "are worth it" because the properties bring in $40,000 a month.
According to the suit, Daugherty finds new tenants by actively recruiting "vulnerable and indigent" people from homeless shelters and food banks. She then rents areas of properties including basements, garages and "other areas that do not meet minimum standards for occupancy as habitable space," the suit says.
When it is time to kick out the tenants, the suit says that Daugherty hires other people to "impersonate City building inspectors," go into the property and kick everyone out, telling them that it has been condemned.
The lawsuit says that Daugherty and the five others began buying these properties in 2007, paying very little for them because they were condemned. Prior to renting the properties out, they made little or no improvements, the suit says. Bed bugs and rodents are common in the properties, and many of the units lack doors that lock.
The Daughertys' operation spans at least nine south city neighborhoods. The lawsuit goes into detail on the issues that have stemmed from properties in Carondelet, Dutchtown, Mount Pleasant, Benton Park, Benton Park West, Tower Grove East, Cheltenham, Gravois Park and the Patch.
A two-story brick home on Jefferson Avenue in the Benton Park West neighborhood was bought by AAA Sunshine, an LLC owned by Daugherty, in 2014 for $15,500. Since then, the suit says, two people have been stabbed there and two people have died suspiciously in what were likely overdoses. The suit says the property in general has been a "haven for illegal drug use and criminal activity.
In the Patch neighborhood, AAA Sunshine bought a two-story vinyl-sided home on Virginia Avenue for $39,000 in 2020. In the three years since, the suit says, the police have been called there 28 times for reports of burglary, shots fired, harassment and other crimes. At one point, the city condemned and boarded up the property, but Daugherty or her associates removed the boards and continued to rent it out.
In 2013, AAA Sunshine bought a two-family flat on Michigan avenue in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood for $9,100. The city condemned it in 2020, but Daugherty continued to rent out portions of it, including its basement. In less than a one-year time span, police responded to it 22 times for assaults, overdoses, weapons violations and a kidnapping.
Daugherty listed her late mother as the owner of at least one of the properties. An LLC associated with the scheme is registered at a fake address in Sullivan, Missouri.
Daugherty is currently facing one felony charge of burglary for allegedly stealing from a residence on the 7200 block of Pennsylvania in October. That residence is near several others she owns.
UPDATE: A spokesman for City Hall reached out to the RFT to say that the city is looking to get in touch with anyone who may have been affected by or rented from Daugherty. They are encouraged to contact the city's Civil Rights Enforcement Agency at 314-622-3301.
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