A Dallas County court clerk finds herself at the center of a legal storm after a grand jury indicted her on charges of forgery in connection with an alleged eviction notice fabrication. Lutishia Williams, 53, is accused of creating a phony hearing notice in August 2022, which ultimately led to the eviction of Chantel Hardaway, a local mother from Mesquite.
Officials filed court documents on Dec. 23, outlining the misdemeanor charges against Williams, chief clerk for Justice of the Peace Margaret O’Brien. The dispossessed, Chantel Hardaway, filed a lawsuit claiming she never received the fabricated notice, which, ostensibly, resulted in her unjust eviction. Neither Williams nor O’Brien could be reached for comment, according to The Dallas Morning News.
As the tangled web of accusations spread, Dallas attorney Mark Melton put forward allegations supporting the claim that the document in Hardaway's case was forged. Hardaway, who at the time of the set hearing date was hospitalized after childbirth, disputes ever getting notice of a hearing, which ultimately passed by default in her absence. Both O’Brien and Williams have previously stated the notice was legitimate and appropriately mailed.
Melton, engaged with the nonprofit Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center to aid residents during the pandemic, took to social media to reveal ongoing depositions. His pointed investigations, as noted in a release include testimony from clerks within O’Brien's court expressing the routine of defendants claiming to never receive notices, usually, an easily rectifiable issue. However, the document Hardaway contests, typed in Microsoft Word and sporting the court’s seal, in the eyes of clerk Wendy Lopez, defies the standard protocol for notification, which should be system-generated, as per the Dallas Observer.
