The Lord of Squat: Mark Guerette Got Busted for Putting Families in Foreclosed Homes

On Wednesday, Shelly got a phone call from Mark, who said he could get her a house. Not an apartment, not a duplex. A house, for a price they could afford. On Friday, the two young couples drove to meet him.

At a strip-mall office on Kimberly Boulevard in North Lauderdale, they met Mark Guerette and his business partner, a bald-headed, olive-skinned man named Mark Laird. "Come on, I'll show you some houses," said Mark Guerette. He got into his white Hummer and they all followed him in Shelly's truck, driving around North Lauderdale. They stopped at a few houses. They stepped inside, walked around on the carpeting, and heard their voices echo in the hallways and bedrooms.

Michael McElroy

Mark Guerette

Stefan Kamph

An uncertain future faced Melesia Dubose and her granddaughter, Samairah, when they were evicted in January from the house they rented from Mark Guerette.

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More About

• North Lauderdale
• Terry Smith
• Mark Guerette
• Coral Springs
• Foreclosures

Juslaine and Fabian got first choice, because they were the ones who had found Mark. Then Shelly and Ed picked their house, a two-bedroom on a quiet street just across from City Hall. It had a big fenced yard in the back where their dog could play. They followed Mark back to his office, trying to contain their joy.

Mark explained that the houses were foreclosures, owned by the banks. He said he had teamed up with the city to let families live in the houses. They would have to agree to take care of them, mow the lawns, and pay the utility bills and taxes. "And if anyone ever comes and says that they're the owner," he said, "call me directly."

He handed them some leases to sign. The rent was under $300 a month. There was an addendum at the back of the lease, and Mark explained that it said someone from the banks might come to kick them out. "Call me," he repeated, "and we'll just move you right into another house."

It was almost too easy. But here was a kind, earnest-sounding man, giving them an affordable lease on a home. When they were done signing, Mark gave each couple the code to the lock box on their door, and shook their hands again and sent them out into the sunlight. They weren't homeless anymore.

A week later, Shelly made Thanksgiving dinner for her whole family in the first house she and Ed had ever shared. She cooked a turkey in the oven, bending over her baby to reach the counter. The young couple spread out blankets on the floor and ate the turkey picnic-style with their kids and their parents. Shelly had never been happier.

There's a tendency not to want to ask questions when you get a great deal. Having a house, and the promise of a new one if somebody took this one away, was enough for Shelly and Ed.

Mark had just rented out the first two houses he didn't own, and he was planning to rent more. They weren't all going to be so cheap.

Terry Smith and Melesia Dubose signed their lease two days before Christmas in 2009. Over the course of a few weeks, Mark had streamlined his process, filing batches of adverse possession claims with the county and renting out properties through a few complicit real estate agents.

Terry and Melesia met their agent at the house, she opened a lock box on the door, handed over the keys, and turned to leave. She didn't even wait until they had opened the door.

Terry estimated that they put $10,000 in renovations into the house since they rented it on an "as-is" basis. They didn't pay any mind to the letters that started coming from Deutsche Bank, topped with a bright-red sticker from the sheriff's department saying "Notice of Eviction." The letters weren't addressed to them, but to the previous owner. In fact, their names weren't on anything except the lease and the electric bill.

The possibility that the whole deal could fall apart was too much for Terry to contemplate. He waited for somebody to call him about the bank notices, to say, "Terry Smith, this is what's going on. Here's what's going to happen."

He did get a call from Mark in February. "I'm having some legal trouble," said Mark, who explained that he would send a notarized letter authorizing Terry to stop paying rent. Terry could live there for free, for the foreseeable future. Mark continued: "Someone from the State Attorney's Office will be coming to see you. When he comes, you can talk to him, or you can tell him to take a hike."

After sunset on March 5, 2010, a man pulled up to Terry and Melesia's house. He introduced himself as an investigator for the state attorney. They welcomed him into the living room, which was warm and dark, dominated by a television cabinet. Cloudy glass cabinets held a few religious trinkets. He set down a tape recorder.

Joe Roubicek was a compact, gray-haired man who wouldn't look out of place on any of the Law & Order franchises. He retired from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department Economic Crimes Unit and went on to work in the State Attorney's Office. In his free time, he self-published true-crime accounts of the cases he worked. Now, tasked with building a case against Mark, he was looking for victims.