Tim Evans

The Indianapolis Star

INDIANAPOLIS — Karen Sauer connected immediately with the neatly dressed, personable woman who wanted to rent her condo.

Cherise Lee, who responded last summer to Sauer’s ad on Craig’s List, sealed that bond between the two single moms with a tearful tale. The condo where Lee had lived for the past eight years was being sold, and she needed to find a new home.

The story seemed to check out when Sauer called the number Lee provided for her longtime landlord.

But there was something Sauer didn’t know at the time — the "landlord" was an impostor, and the check Lee gave her to cover the first month’s rent and damage deposit wasn’t worth the paper it was written on.

Former Realtor convicted in homeowner scams

So Sauer did what so many before her had done. She rented her condo to the woman who was likely the worst tenant in Marion County — a scam artist who for two decades has used her charms to impress landlords, only to leave them stuck with thousands of dollars in unpaid rent and other damages.

Court records show that Lee, who did not respond to a request for comment left with her attorney, has been the target of at least 24 eviction lawsuits in Marion County since 2001. She also has been found guilty of numerous frauds.

The harsh and expensive lessons learned by Lee’s victims serve as a cautionary tale for anyone who is renting property: You can’t trust your “gut” instinct or, even, the references provided by a prospective tenant.

The cases also expose what some see as a critical gap in Indiana law. Many of Lee’s victims ultimately won financial judgments against her in small claims courts, a total of more than $51,000 since 2001. But only a few have been able to collect.

And the judgments did little to stop her reign of swindles. Sauer’s bad experience with Lee came during a run from October 2014 through last July in which Lee stiffed six consecutive landlords. She would brazenly rent expensive condos, lie about her past, write bad checks and, ultimately, force all six owners to incur even more costs by going to court to force her to move out.

Property owner's Nazi flag upsets neighbors in Tenn.

The recent string of unpaid landlords, however, pales in comparison to another series of broken leases from April 2001 through September 2003 when Lee ran through 13 landlords. They also were forced to obtain court-ordered eviction notices.

She'll be back in court again Tuesday for yet another eviction hearing in a case filed March 29.

“She’s not stopping,” Sauer said, “because somebody is always bailing her out.”

Picking targets

Lee has been able to continue her scam because she appears to target “amateurs.”

IndyStar found just one case involving Lee and professional property managers or apartment complexes. In the vast majority of cases, Lee appears to zero in on folks such as Sauer, Lee Tate and Jeremy Hawkins.

Sauer, who had recently moved into a house after adopting two children, was renting the condo where she had lived while waiting for the housing market to recover so she could sell the property. Tate was looking for a renter for his mother-in-law's condo after she died. Hawkins, who had married and moved into a new home with his wife, was renting the condo where he previously lived.

Lee found several of her victims — including Sauer, Hawkins and Tate — through ads they had placed on Craig’s List.

The majority of Lee's victims have been in Pike Township, where she has been sued for back rent at least 16 times in 15 years. In those cases, she still owes more than $29,000 in judgments for unpaid rent and damages. She owes an additional $30,000-plus in interest on unpaid judgments in Pike and other townships.

Lee moved into Hawkins' condo in July — after she was evicted by Sauer in May and by another Indianapolis woman in June. In all three cases, Lee wrote bad checks for the first month’s rent and deposit.

“It was definitely a learning experience,” Hawkins said. “She completed the application, and I called all her references, and they all vouched for her.”

Not surprisingly, Sauer, who had been one of Lee’s most recent landlords, was not among the references she provided to Hawkins.

Ultimately, it took nearly a month before he could get Lee evicted.

“I don’t expect to get my money back,” Hawkins said. “The mistake I made was giving her the key when she gave me the check. Now I know I should have waited for it to clear.”

There was one other thing Hawkins learned from his dealings with Lee.

“The people at the (Pike Township) small claims court,” he said, “were all very familiar with her.”

Getting off easy

Four of Lee's victims interviewed by IndyStar said they have found little help through the criminal justice system.

Stiffing landlords typically is not considered a crime in Indiana, even though cases sometimes involve the exchange of bad checks and fraudulent statements on legal documents.

That leaves victims such as Sauer on their own to seek repayment, using a frustrating and mostly futile civil process.

Unless a defendant has a job, from which wages can be garnished, or owns property, on which a lien can be placed, there are no court-imposed consequences for failing to pay a small claims judgment. Lee, who has worked off and on over the past 15 years, repaid some of her debts through court-ordered garnishments. But many of her victims remain empty-handed.

Landlords haven't been the only recipients of Lee's bad checks. Some of those other cases have led to criminal charges, too. Yet, as she does in the rent scams, Lee seems to keep getting off easy.

During that same 15-year period when Lee was sued 24 times for unpaid rent, she also was charged with at least 24 criminal counts — 15 misdemeanors and nine felonies — related to check deception, fraud, forgery and theft.

Those criminal charges were resolved in plea deals resulting in four misdemeanor and four felony convictions. Each of her eight criminal convictions earned Lee sentences ranging from one to eight years in prison.

But all those sentences were suspended. That means Lee has spent only about 60 days in jail since 2003, with 52 of those days coming after her third felony check fraud arrest in six months back in 2004.

Lee got another break in March, when she pleaded guilty in Marion Superior Court for what would be her fifth felony conviction: fraud on a financial institution. Once again, she received a prison sentence — 30 months — and, as in the past, the jail time was suspended.

A spokeswoman for the Marion County prosecutor said Lee's crimes occurred too far apart to seek an enhanced "habitual offender" sentence, and suspended sentences provided a better opportunity for victims to be repaid.

"Securing the felony conviction through a plea was important," Peg McLeish said. "If she recommits, this felony conviction should serve to make her habitual eligible and subject to a much more serious penalty than she has faced in the past. Second, the sentence includes the condition of Ms. Lee receiving mental health evaluation and treatment. Third, agreeing to a suspended sentence gives Ms. Lee a significant incentive to make restitution to all of the victims included in the plea agreement. It is likely that this is the victims’ best chance to receive any restitution at all."

Victims such as Sauer see it differently. “If she did 12 months in jail for what she did to me, I would be satisfied," Sauer said. "Because we, as taxpayers, are already footing her bill, so we may as well pay it where she is locked up and can't cause anyone else harm or damage.”

Meanwhile, Lee faces another felony count of check deception in Hamilton County, where she was charged in December with writing a bad check for $1,769 from a closed account to pay for auto repairs. In that case, Lee was given a court-appointed attorney and released pending a trial set for May 5.

That was the second check deception charge filed against Lee in Hamilton County in 2015. In the first case, she was charged with writing a bad check for $1,000 — again from an account that did not exist — to a car dealer in 2014 as a down payment on a vehicle. A judge had to issue a warrant for Lee's arrest after she failed to appear for a hearing but ultimately accepted a plea deal and gave her a one-year suspended sentence and probation.

Double standard?

In Sauer's mind, the system is not working. “She’s not learning a lesson by having to pay for what she’s done,” she said.

If someone broke into her home and stole a television or other items, Sauer said, the police would get involved and the thief would face criminal charges. Maybe even be sent to prison.

So she doesn’t understand why Lee keeps getting so little jail time when she’s essentially doing the same thing — or worse — to landlords.

The way Sauer sees it, Lee basically broke into her home by giving her a bad check and refusing to make it good. Then Lee changed the locks, denying Sauer access to her own condo, and stayed for weeks before Sauer could get an emergency eviction order. It was money out of Sauer's pocket, income she counted on to pay the mortgage and feed her kids.

"There is a difference," said McLeish, the prosecutor's spokeswoman. "Victims are encouraged to file a police report in addition to filing a civil case to provide needed information for a criminal investigation. In the most recent case, the deputy prosecutor was unaware of Ms. Lee’s civil court issues or any police reports filed by other victims."

Sauer said she turned to police and the prosecutor, but her complaints seemed to fall on deaf ears. She said no one from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department followed up after she filed a report about Lee’s bad check, and the prosecutor’s office told her that her rent case was a civil matter, not a crime.

Dream to nightmare

What sticks with Sauer as much as anything is the trust she placed in Lee when the pair met last April, and the way it was dashed.

Lee's reference, which Sauer now suspects was a friend or even Lee herself, checked out.

Lee also answered “no” to two important questions on the rental application: “Has applicant ever been sued for bills?” and “Has applicant ever been guilty of a felony?” Both answers were blatant lies, Sauer said. At the time, Lee had two felony convictions from 2004 and a long string of resolved or pending lawsuits filed by other landlords in small claims courts.

But it was the personal touches that really sold Sauer on Lee, including a series of text messages between the pair after their initial meeting April 27.

In one exchange, three days later, Lee texted Sauer to say she was excited about moving to a new place because it was less expensive than her past home.

“I want to finally have some money in my pocket,” Lee texted. “I have a son I’ve helped through college get his Masters. And now I’m helping my daughter get her Masters.”

Sauer was impressed.

“Will you adopt me??? Lol,” she joked with her new tenant.

Later that day, when Sauer sent Lee a message explaining it would be a couple of days before she could replace the stove and get a cleaner to go through the condo, Lee told her that was fine.

“I can clean. No worries!” Lee responded. “And don’t think you have to rush getting a stove. I am mainly a microwave person.”

Lee’s easygoing manner and apparent commitment to family struck a chord with Sauer. She thought she had found an ideal tenant.

“People had given me chances in the past,” Sauer said, “and I believed in paying that forward.”

By the next week, though, Sauer began seeing another side of her new renter.

Lee didn’t follow through, as she had agreed to, in switching the utilities to her name.

Then her check bounced. The address on Lee’s check was another condo where Lee had been evicted for not paying her rent. Lee also had a dog in the condo, even though her lease prohibited pets.

Lee turned nasty when Sauer asked about the dog and the bad check. Instead of paying Sauer, Lee changed the locks. She also threatened and taunted her new landlord.

That’s when Sauer said she realized Lee had been through the eviction process before.

“She said she had an attorney, and she threatened that he would eat me up in court,” Sauer said. “But she never even showed up. She knew it would go nowhere, and she knew I would never see a dime."

Misery loves company

Even the court's eviction order didn’t end Sauer's traumatic and costly ordeal.

When Lee ignored the order to move out, Sauer had to hire a moving company. She also had to pay for a storage unit where Lee’s possessions were taken.

Lee, instead of apologizing, rubbed it in Sauer’s face.

“I wanted my stuff to be packed up and put in storage,” Lee texted. “So, thank you! I waited on yesterday on purpose.”

Later that day, Lee again unloaded on Sauer — her dream tenant now a nightmare.

“I have a thing about FAT UNHAPPY MISERABLE WOMEN LIKE YOU!” Lee texted. “They love company.”

Based on Lee's long trail of broken leases and bad checks, Sauer does, indeed, have a lot of company.

Follow Tim Evans on Twitter: @starwatchtim