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Real estate scam leaves two families teetering on the brink

Woman posed as property manager to steal money
Posted at 10:18 PM, Apr 25, 2017
and last updated 2017-04-25 22:41:36-04

Four children, ranging from the age of three and thirteen, are living in limbo. For the last month they have been living in a motel room with their mother Dawn. We're not using her last name to spare these kids embarrassment at school.

Dawn blames Fairrin McCrimmon for wiping out her family's savings and crushing their hopes for a home. Dawn says McCrimmon provided a lease, deposit receipts and a key to a Riverview home. In exchange this single mother handed over her life savings of $2,100.

Dawn and her children loaded up everything they own in a U-Haul and drove to the home. The key she was given didn't work.

Michele Laws also found McCrimmon by word of mouth.

Both victims say the 31-year-old used the name Erin Wilson on every document they signed.

Laws who had lost her last apartment in a fire was days away from moving into another Riverview home. Then she says the woman who calls herself Erin Johnson’s phone was disconnected and she knew she’d been had.

We found McCrimmon is a convicted felon with more than a dozen arrests in the past decade.

No one answered the door at her last known address. The sheriff's office is also looking for her now that an arrest warrant has been issued.

Both of the houses are bank owned and it is not clear how the suspect got into them. She's facing grand theft and scheming to defraud charges. 

Anyone who knows where she is asked to call the Hillsborough Sheriff's Office.

As for Dawn and her family we have connected them to Hillsborough's Homeless Services for help.