In October 2023, a man claiming to be from the Cook County Sheriff’s Office was banging on apartment doors in a building on 67th and Merrill in South Shore.
He left a five-day notice on Steve Johnson’s door, asking for over $3,000 in back rent payments that had been waived by a previous slumlord just months earlier. Made aware of this, a Crusader journalist was both curious and suspicious. Cook County Sheriff officers don’t work on Saturdays, and other tenants said they didn’t see any police cars outside when that man began banging on doors.
Investigating the incident, the Crusader journalist called the phone number on the notice. The person answering on the other line worked for CHER, a property management firm that was now Johnson’s new landlord. The staff member denied the company was impersonating a Cook County Sheriff’s officer. However, after the Crusader published the story, the firm never bothered Johnson again for the back rent…