Chicago man forced to pay off squatters after cops refuse to get them out of his home

Marco Velazquez owns a South Side property that he is trying to sell. When his realtor came by with a prospective buyer, he was told there were already people inside. Velazquez told ABC 7, "I couldn't believe it. It was like a nightmare."

He said a woman by the name of Shermaine and Codarro, her boyfriend, had moved in and claimed to have recently purchased the property. The couple showed police a mortgage document, but Cook County said that they did not have the mortgage on record. Video recorded by the realtor showed the couple explaining to police that they had a right to be there.

Velazquez said, "The worst thing happened, when police told me they couldn't do anything. It needs to go to a civil court." He said he was told by police that they could not remove anyone under Illinois law.

After that, Velazquez decided to take matters into his own hands and told the outlet, "I said, 'I'm not going to leave.' Called a couple friends, stayed overnight and I knew they were not going to like that." He, his wife, and their friends spent the night in the home. "We stayed in the living room, watching the door. They stayed in one of the bedrooms," Velazquez said. "We stayed a whole night with them."

Velazquez said that the next morning, however, he realized the couple was not budging on the matter. "They were like, we want $8,000 of what we paid, so we can leave your property." They negotiated on the matter, with a cash-for-key agreement being signed. He paid them $4,300 to leave the property.

"We didn't want to give them money, but we heard really bad stories about squatters taking over properties for six, eight, 10 months, even a year," Velazquez said.

Weeks later, he said that a detective with the Chicago police contacted him to say that one of the alleged squatters is the same woman who has been accused of squatting at a different residence after she left Velazquez’s property.

Shermaine Powell-Gillard was arrested and charged with burglary, forgery, obstructing identification, and criminal residential trespassing in the case of Marcia and Carlton Lee’s home. Velazquez said he is working with the detective and hopes action is taken in his case. "I heard stories before about squatters. I never thought it would happen to me."

Powell-Gillard claimed that allegations she is a squatter are unfounded, and that she is "innocent until proven guilty."