Alishia Evans, the Milwaukee woman who was conned by a bogus landlord and then bounced by police from the home she thought she would be renting, is receiving a financial settlement from Freddie Mac, the giant mortgage agency that owned the house.
Prior to the settlement being reached, sources said it would likely be in the neighborhood of $18,000 — the same amount Evans is seeking from the city. Terms of the settlement are confidential and both sides declined to comment on them Tuesday.
The settlement is in addition to an outpouring of community support to Evans, who was pregnant with twins when she was ticketed for trespassing and tossed out of the house where she briefly lived with her fiancé and two young children. She has since given birth to twin daughters, who are nearly 3 months old.
“It was really awesome,” Evans, 32, said of the gifts and cash she received from the community. Evans spent part of last summer sleeping in a car after all of her belongings were tossed onto the curbside and quickly stolen.
“People were very, very generous,” said Julie Armour of Shorewood, a retired school teacher who collected a variety of donated goods for Evans after posting a notice on Facebook. “We made two trips on two different days … filling up a car and a van each time.”
Among the goods collected were a crib, baby clothes, a television, electronic goods, a coffee maker, blankets, sheets and gift cards.
She also collected more than $2,000 via two GoFundMe pages.
“Pretty much everything that you could think of to start over,” Armour said. Some of the goods were new and some were used.
“People have a lot things they don’t need and want to help,” she said.
Evans and her lawyer, Jessica Roulette, declined to comment about the Freddie Mac settlement except to confirm Tuesday that the two sides had recently reached an agreement. Roulette said the talks started after the Journal Sentinel wrote about Evans’ ordeal in September.
“They reached out to me, after seeing the story,” Roulette said.
Chad Wandler, a Freddie Mac spokesman, told a reporter he would call back to be interviewed about the settlement after he met with Freddie Mac lawyers Tuesday. He did not call back and did not respond to text or phone messages.
The Ordeal Begins
Evans’ ordeal started in June when she and her fiancé, Levon Osuji, paid $2,000 to rent a house on the 5700 block of N. 81st St. The money went to a man who identified himself as Tim Jacobs of Experience Management and said he was the property’s landlord.
Evans, her two daughters — ages 7 and 12 — and Osuji quickly moved all of their belongings into the three-bedroom home.
They did not know the house was actually owned by Freddie Mac, the quasi-government mortgage agency.
Three days later, the couple were roused about 1 p.m. from a nap by the sound of police banging on their front door. They were ordered out at gunpoint by police.
Police were called to the house by Amanda Lowney of the Rosemont Group, which was managing the property for Freddie.
Police ordered the family out of the house. The next day, when they failed to leave, Evans was ticketed for trespassing. The City Attorney’s Office later dismissed the ticket.
On the third day, while Evans and Osuji were out of the house, she received a voice mail message from a woman who identified herself as Lowney and said the locks on the home had been changed.
“We did get all of the items that were left in the home to the curb,” she said in the voice mail. “They will be there for the weekend and on Monday we will be trashing anything that’s left, thank you.”
Evans and Osuji rushed back to the house only to find all of the belongings had been taken to the curb. Almost everything of value had been stolen or ruined, Evans said.
Even Bella, the family cat, had been tossed out. It has not been found.
Police said they are investigating the matter and attempting to identify the man who claimed to be the landlord.
Roulette, an attorney with Legal Action of Wisconsin, said he is still exploring other possible legal actions she may take on behalf of Evans.
In September, she filed a notice of claim — a precursor to a lawsuit — charging that police “knowingly facilitated a lockout eviction of … Evans and her household and personal possessions.”
The claim notes that Evans showed police the lease she signed with Jacobs, receipts for rent payments and the keys that Jacobs gave them.
The claim asks the city to pay her $18,000 and provide her with credit monitoring services, since her credit cards and identification were stolen during the family’s ouster from the house.
The city has until March to respond to the claim.
