ATHENS COUNTY, Ohio — The federal lawsuit against an Athens County landlord has been amended to include three of his family members — and a local tenant advocacy group is letting renters and the public know who they are and which properties they own.
Joe Lucas, 84, of Amesville is the target of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit that alleges Lucas sexually harassed female tenants for about 20 years. In February, the DOJ amended the suit to include his grandson and his granddaughter and her husband.
Last month, United Athens County Tenants published information about the family and its properties.
“We think that tenants in particular ought to be aware of which properties specifically are at issue in the federal lawsuit against Lucas and his co-defendants — and not just tenants, but the general public,” United Athens County Tenants member Damon Krane told the Independent.
Caitlyn McDaniel, a staff attorney at Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio, agreed.
“We believe that it is always important for tenants to have access to as much information as possible to determine if they should rent from a particular landlord,” McDaniel said in an email. “UACT’s report allows tenants to make an informed decision before choosing to rent from any member of the Lucas family.”
In the lawsuit announced last August, the DOJ alleges that Lucas requested sex from tenants; threatened tenants who refused sex with loss of housing; initiated eviction against tenants who refused his advances; offered housing benefits to tenants who accepted his advances; subjected tenants to unwelcome sexual touching; and engaged in other offenses that constituted sexual harassment.
Lucas’s family members added to lawsuit
In February 2024, the DOJ filed an amended complaint adding Lucas’s grandson Jacob Bush, granddaughter Joie Carr and her husband Jeremy Carr to the lawsuit. The amended complaint alleges that Lucas sexually harassed tenants at properties his family members owned, while acting in his capacity as a property manager.
“Sometimes, a landlord will hire a property manager to run the business for them and deal directly with tenants,” McDaniel said in an email. “In those situations, even if the landlord does not know of the abuse perpetrated by their property manager, the landlord could be liable for those abuses because the property manager was acting as an agent (or on behalf) of the landlord.”
Lucas, Bush, and Joie and Jeremy Carr have all denied the allegations against them in separate court filings.
In Bush’s answer to the amended complaint, Bush says he is “not liable for Defendant Joseph Earl Lucas’ conduct, as such alleged conduct was committed outside the scope of any employment and /or agency relationship.”
Lucas’s attorney told the Independent in an email, “Mr. Lucas denies the Government’s allegations against him and looks forward to his day in court.”
In addition to denying allegations of sexual impropriety with tenants, Lucas denies in his answer to the DOJ’s complaint that he managed the properties owned by his family members because the word “managed” is “vague.” Lucas asked that the case be dismissed.
If Lucas and his family members are found liable in the case, McDaniel said in an email, “The addition of these defendants could expand the amount of damages available to the victim.”
“Adding the owners of properties which Joe Lucas managed also sends a clear message to housing providers that they are potentially liable for the bad acts of their agents,” McDaniel said in an email. “This message should encourage housing providers to hire agents carefully, train them adequately, and always maintain proper supervision to prevent the types of sexual harassment and other problems alleged to have occurred in the Lucas case.”
The DOJ declined to comment. Attorneys for Bush and Joie and Jeremy Carr did not respond to requests for comment by press time.
Properties owned by the co-defendants
In UACT’s press release about the list of Lucas family properties it compiled, the advocacy group encouraged tenants to review its property list “to see if their current homes” are on it.
Below, the Independent maps the property list released by UACT. The Independent verified the information UACT released in its property list through information available on the Athens County Auditor’s website.
A map of 80 Lucas family properties in Athens County. Data compiled by United Athens County Tenants via information available on the Athens County Auditor's website. Data verified by the Athens County Independent. Map by Athens County Independent.
In its release, UACT also encouraged “any tenants subjected to Lucas’s alleged sexual misconduct at these or other properties to come forward if they have not already done so by reporting their experiences to the US Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division at 202-514-3847.”
Many of the properties on UACT’s list, and the Independent’s map above, are not residences. UACT believes the non-residential properties are still relevant to the public, however, because they convey the local property assets owned by the co-defendants in the lawsuit, Krane said.
The property assets are especially relevant, in UACT’s view, because Lucas transferred the majority of the properties he owned — both residential and nonresidential — to his family members in the year immediately preceding the DOJ’s complaint, UACT found in its investigation into the Lucas case.
While the non-residential properties “aren’t perhaps as much of a concern” for tenants “since there aren’t tenants at those properties, we still thought they were relevant in terms of Lucas shifting ownership of those assets,” Krane said.
“We can’t know what the intention was in those assets changing hands shortly before the government filed its lawsuit, but we certainly wouldn’t want the effect of that to be that those assets are shielded from being seized” through a judgment in the case, Krane said.
The transfers could be routine estate planning — or attempts to shelter assets from judgment “in anticipation of an order that a named defendant not have any contact with any tenants,” McDaniel explained in an email.
“We have confidence that the DOJ and court will be able to determine whether the purpose of these transfers was to avoid fair treatment and compensation of the survivors of Mr. Lucas's alleged abuse,” McDaniel stated.
Krane said UACT first started looking into the properties owned by Lucas and his family members after the DOJ initially announced its case, following questions from community members. The group picked up efforts as it lobbied Chauncey Village Council to pass a “pay to stay” ordinance, enhancing tenant protections in the village.
“Making it harder for landlords to evict tenants also makes it harder for landlords to use the threat of eviction do a lot of other terrible things, including using the threat of eviction to essentially extort sex from tenants, as Lucas was alleged to have been doing for decades at properties that potentially included some in Chauncey,” Krane said.
McDaniel said Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio can serve as a resource for tenants affected by sexual harassment.
“If a landlord has ever offered to reduce your rent in exchange for sexual favors or submitted you to sexual harassment including, but not limited to, unwanted statements or touching or other intrusions into your home, please reach out to Legal Aid of Southeast and Central Ohio. If you have any information regarding sexual harassment perpetrated by Joe Lucas, please contact the DOJ,” McDaniel said.
The intake phone number for Legal Aid is 740-594-3558.
Keri Johnson and Emily Bartholic contributed to this story.
Correction: A previous version of this story included a type-o in a quote from Krane, in his quote about making it harder for landlords to evict tenants.
Note: This article has been updated since its initial publication to include a more interactive map of the Lucas family properties.
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