A Dallas County court clerk has been indicted on forgery charges after allegedly falsifying a hearing notice to evict a woman from her home in Mesquite in 2022.
Lutishia Williams, 53, allegedly fabricated and signed a fake eviction hearing notice targeting Chantel Hardaway, a single mother of seven children, in August 2022. Charges were formally brought against Williams — who is the chief clerk for Margaret O’Brien, justice of the peace — by a Dallas County grand jury on December 23. A trial date has not yet been set.
As previously covered by The Dallas Express, Hardaway brought a lawsuit against Dallas County after the court entered a default judgment against her when she missed a hearing in her eviction case scheduled on July 27, 2022. She claimed that she had never received a letter from Dallas County. However, Williams and O’Brien argued that one had been found in Hardaway’s court file.
When an anonymous tipster came forward claiming that the notice in the court file had been forged, an investigation was launched by the Dallas County District Attorney’s public integrity unit in September 2022.
None of the parties involved in the recent lawsuit have commented on Williams’ indictment.
In Dallas, there have been 2,372 reports of fraud offenses as of December 29, according to the City’s crime analytics dashboard.
White-collar offenses place an additional burden on an already-taxed police force. The Dallas Police Department currently fields around 3,000 officers despite a City analysis recommending 4,000 police officers for a municipality the size of Dallas. The shortage has been especially apparent in Downtown Dallas, which consistently logs far more criminal activity than Fort Worth’s city center. The latter is patrolled by a special police unit and private security guards.