Courtesy SLMPD
A past booking photo of Dara Daugherty, who the City of St. Louis accused in January of being part of a massive illegal operation.
A judge ruled yesterday that the City of St. Louis may continue with their lawsuit against slumlord Dara Daugherty and her associates. The city has accused them of for years renting out dozens of properties throughout south city as illegal rooming houses — despite the properties being condemned for habitation.
Daugherty’s attorney Elkin Kistner filed a motion last month arguing that aspects of the case laid out in the city’s 57-page suit were vague and the facts presented in the filing were too general to support many of the allegations against Daugherty and five family members and associates, as well as 11 of their LLCs. Kistner asked St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Jason Sengheiser to force the city to rewrite the lawsuit and file an amended version in order for the case to proceed.
At a hearing yesterday morning in front of Sengheiser, Kistner argued the structure of the city’s lawsuit, which runs more than 300 paragraphs, makes it unclear exactly who is alleged to have done what.
Kistner cited as an example the allegation that Daughtery once bragged to a police officer that her operation brought in $40,000 a month. Kistner argued the city’s not specifying where and when and to what specific officer the alleged braggadocio was made, made it very hard to ask his client about it and to build her defense.
“I think you’re entitled to some sort of frame of reference,” he said. “At minimum, the [city] needs to allege who, what, where.”
However, Assistant City Counselor Toni Mullenix argued that the lawsuit was plenty specific and that Kistner’s filing was just an effort to “harass and have unnecessary delay.”
“It’s unclear how the city can be more specific,” she said.
Mullenix said that the only reason that the city couldn’t be more specific in its suit was because much of the information about the illegal rooming house scheme is known only to those perpetrating it.
For instance, she said, the city couldn’t spell out every instance or exactly how many times Daugherty paid people to pretend to be city employees to evict her tenants; only Daugherty knew that. Mullenix added that any confusion related to which defendants owned what properties had more to do with Daugherty and Co.’s use of LLCs to obfuscate ownership than any aspect of the lawsuit they’re now facing.
Ultimately, Sengheiser agreed with Mullenix. He gave Kistner until April 5 to file his response on behalf of Daugherty to the city’s allegations.
In addition to Dara Daugherty, Kistner filed his motion on behalf of her co-defendant Daniel McAfee. However, several other of Daugherty’s co-defendants appear to have no legal representation in the matter at this time.
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