'We think this may be that Candace Clark': The accused serial scammer gets evicted from another home while awaiting trial
CHICAGO (CBS) – What has Candace Clark been doing for the past two years?
She has been awaiting trial on theft and fake ID charges since January 2020. Since then, her trial got delayed by the pandemic, a few attorney changes, illnesses, and, on one occasion, an inability to work her new smartphone. The CBS 2 Investigators recently discovered what she's been up to for the past two years. It's similar to what she had been doing before she got arrested.
THE 2020 ARREST & EVICTION
Law enforcement arrested Candace Clark on January 17, 2020, at a Gold Coast Starbucks. That arrest followed CBS 2 Investigations detailing Clark's alleged cons.
First, we told you about her elaborate productions during which she was sworn in as the Director of Special Investigations for the State of Illinois. In one of those, she was sworn in as a United Nations attaché. CBS 2 confirmed she never held either of those positions. The state position didn't exist. The ceremonies were phony. The speakers and most of the audience were hired actors. Many involved in the productions told CBS 2 they never got paid.
Our second investigation revealed Clark's decades-long pattern of living rent-free in houses throughout Chicago and the suburbs. Some were even multi-million-dollar Lincoln Park luxury homes. Several landlords told us stories of how Clark would talk her way into their homes by providing upfront checks that would bounce days later and then she would never pay rent. The landlords had to evict her to get her out. That process could take several months or even years. The Cook County Sheriff's Office (CCSO) evicted Clark from Fiori Hadera's Lincoln Park home the day before Clark got arrested.
Between 2008 and early 2020, the CBS 2 Investigators pieced together 24 cases where landlords accused Clark of skipping out on rent, owing them some $300,000 in lost rent and repairs for damage left behind.
Two of those cases, including Hadera's, are among the six felony counts against Clark.
CLARK'S NEW HOME
Less than two months after being evicted from Hadera's home, Candace Clark had found a new place to live.
Here's the twist. Clark was not the woman who filled out and signed the new rental application for a small bungalow in Calumet City.
The woman who applied "showed me she was able to pay the rent," the landlord told us. He wanted us to keep his name and face private. He said the potential renter's pay stubs indicated she made about $75,000 a year.
"She gave me a reference," the landlord said. "And I called and confirmed that she was a good worker and a reliable worker. That's why I thought that she was going to be a good tenant."
The woman handed him a money order for the first month's rent plus the security deposit -- a total of $3,200. A money order is essentially just like cash.
So the landlord rented the house to Velvet Dixon. She signed the lease on March 13, 2020. After she supposedly moved in, he said he never saw her again at the property.
"I went to the house several times to demand for rent, and I never met Velvet," the landlord said.
March 13, 2020 was a significant day as well for Candace Clark. It was the day she was formally indicted on five counts of theft plus one count of false personation. Six felony counts in all.
THE NEIGHBORS: 'This lady is a scammer'
On the several occasions the landlord stopped by his property to try to collect the rent owed him, he said he saw another woman there. He did not recognize her. But he said she gave him various reasons why she always answered the door, rather than Velvet Dixon.
"She just came there to spend some couple of days," the landlord said. "Sometimes she just came to watch the house or help Velvet clean the house."
But who exactly was "she?"
The CBS 2 Investigators showed a neighbor across the street a photo of Candace Clark.
Michelle Martin recognized her.
"I saw her on the special you did," said Martin. "She stayed to herself. She was a mystery. She was unapproachable."
Martin said her husband along with their neighbor, Ronald Sostand, recognized the woman as Candace Clark, who the CBS 2 Investigators have been looking into for more than two years.
"We found out through your reporting who she really was. This lady is a scammer. She's been scamming people for years," said Sostand.
And then the neighbors let the landlord know.
"I sent him the same link for your report to let him see who she was," Sostand said.
THE CONNECTION
About six months after Velvet Dixon signed the lease, the landlord finally discovered who was living in his house.
"When my neighbor showed me your documentary, I knew it was Candace Clark," he said. "When I confronted her, she said she just came for a visit. When I asked her about a dog, she just said she was walking the dog."
According to the lease Velvet Dixon signed, there would be no pets on the property.
"Had Velvet not applied, Candace would not have been living in my property," the landlord said.
So, what's the connection between Velvet Dixon and Candace Clark? Clark's court records reveal the relationship. Candace Clark spent two weeks behind bars after her arrest in 2020. On Jan. 31, Velvet Dixon wrote on the bond slip that Clark was her sister and paid the $1,500 bail for Clark's freedom.
Velvet Dixon is about seven years older. They both grew up in the South Side's Washington Heights community and attended Percy Julian High School, back when Candace Clark was known as Candace Dixon.
The landlord said he believes when Velvet Dixon rented his property, she was once again helping her sister.
"The bottom line is that she did not rent the place to stay," the landlord said. "She rented it to hand it over to Candace Clark, knowing fully well that Candace Clark was not going to pay."
THE 2022 EVICTION
In October 2020, the landlord filed to evict Velvet Dixon and unknown occupants. A few months later, in January 2021, a process server snapped a photo of Candace Clark, the woman who opened the door. The process server sent the photo to the landlord.
But it wasn't until after the worst of the pandemic was over and the state's moratorium on evictions ended that a Cook County Judge finally signed the eviction order in September 2021.
"It was very difficult to evict a tenant .… It took me a long time," the landlord said.
CCSO finally carried out the eviction on Jan. 14, 2022. It was a cold morning at 8:15 a.m. when officers arrived. As they walked up to the house, they spotted a large dog peeking out the window.
"Oh, there's a big-ass pit bull," one said.
They knocked on the door and a woman opened it. They entered the house with guns drawn but pointing at the ground. "What room is that dog in," one of them asked.
After putting the dog in another room, the woman who was wearing slippers and a long house dress walked into the living room. It wasn't Velvet Dixon.
The CCSO officers spent a few minutes inside the house speaking with her. She told them they were trying to move out but the new place wasn't ready yet.
"As you see the stuff was already ready to go. The stuff was in the truck," she said.
Another officer explained to her, "The motion you have currently is not a good motion, okay? As of things right now, this eviction is gonna proceed today."
She tried to convince them Velvet Dixon had filed an emergency motion the day before that would postpone the eviction for a few more days. Clark had given the CCSO her maiden name, Candace Dixon.
That's when some of the officers recognized her:
- Body worn camera (BWC) officer: "She looks like that…"
- Other officer: "I think it is."
- BWC officer: "We evicted her on that last time, on the North Side."
- Other officer: "Right."
- BWC officer: "We think this may be that Candace Clark. She's given us another name."
CCSO allowed her to get dressed. Officers handed back her two phones, the motion paperwork and gave her a few minutes to put together medication and valuable jewelry she told them she had. She left the home with the dog. They both got into a Penske moving truck parked in the driveway.
The eviction ended about 45 minutes after it began with the moving truck driving away.
THE AFTERMATH
The eviction was not the end of the story. The landlord had Candace Clark out and his keys back, but what he saw when he stepped inside his home triggered this reaction, "I was deeply frustrated."
"They left the property in shamble, destroyed my property. The basement was littered with dog poop," the landlord said.
The landlord and his neighbor took pictures.
He said he lost $36,000 in rent and spent another $25,000 to clean up and repair his property..
"It hurt deeply," the landlord said. "That was a lot of money."
As for Candace Clark, the landlord said: "I would like Candace Clark to be put away, to go to jail, to be in prison at least for some time so people have some relief. She's destroying families. She's destroying people's life. She has to be put away."
The CBS 2 Investigators tried to find Velvet Dixon. We knocked on the door at the home she listed as her current address on the 2020 rental application. An unidentified woman inside shouted, "No. She doesn't live here."
