Hialeah Housing Authority Employee Facing Foreclosure Charged With Stealing Tenants' Rent Checks

In Hialeah, Florida, Miami New Times reports on Hialeah Housing Authority employee/rent collector Delma Mercado, who allegedly came up with a novel attempt avoid foreclosure of her home:

• As media across the county reported last week, the 54-year-old Puerto Rican got nailed for forging her signature on 40 Hialeah Housing Authority checks and pocketing almost $14,000 in poor residents' rent payments.

• What nobody has reported is the reason: Mercado divorced her husband in March 2007, inheriting the mortgage on their $161,000 home near Miami's Sewell Park, public records show. Her bills weren't adding up, apparently, because the bank moved to foreclose on the house in June.

• Even in adversity, she found opportunity. Mercado's job involved collecting rent checks from poor and elderly Hialeahans. Sometime before March, Mercado began scratching her name onto the checks, taking them to a check-cashing shop, and keeping the change. The residents, in turn, were entered into the system as having missed a rent payment.

Reportedly, the alleged scam was caught early enough so that none of the tenants got screwed. As for Mercado, in addition to her mortgage problems, 82 counts of forgery, fraud, and grand theft have reportedly been added to her legal problems.

For the story, see Hialeah Woman Delma Mercado Steals from the Poor to Pay Her Mortgage.