As they arrived at Westborough District Court, Russell and Linda Callahan did their best to avoid showing their faces to an NBC10 Boston photojournalist.
But there is no hiding the 20-year scheme exposed in our extensive investigation, where we documented the Worcester County couple’s history of defrauding small property owners and living in homes without paying the rent.
The Callahans are now facing 10 different felony counts of larceny, forgery and fraud.
Those charges stem from what allegedly happened to Sitanshu Sinha and his wife, Shilpi Gupta. The Shrewsbury couple rented to their home to the Callahans last year when they showed up with a stack of fake paperwork like credit reports, background checks and pay stubs.
To avoid detection, the couple — known in housing circles as “professional tenants” — listed their name as “O’Callagham” on the documents.
Once the rent checks bounced, Sinha and his wife drained $30,000 on evictions proceedings and moving expenses to get the Callahans out of their property. The savings had been meant for their kids’ college funds.
“It was financially very stressful for us,” Gupta said. “(the Callahans) know how to get away with it.”
Over the past two decades in Massachusetts — and a short stint in Florida — our investigation discovered the Callahans have been evicted more than 20 times and have judgements for unpaid rent surpassing $100,000.
Investigations
Victims we spoke with include a single mom, a couple saving to have their first child, and a veteran who was overseas on his first deployment with the Navy.
“I was sad to see this,” said MaryLou Muirhead, a retired housing court judge. “I was sad to see all the people who were taken advantage of.”
Muirhead spent more than 15 years on the bench in Massachusetts and now teaches at New England Law in Boston.
We spoke with Muirhead to get insight about how the Callahans had avoided serious consequences for the pattern of behavior. Our investigation found the legal system repeatedly brushed aside the alleged crimes as “housing court matters.”
“I don’t know why that’s happened because if your cat has kittens in the oven, they don’t become biscuits,” Muirhead said. “That is a real crime. And I don’t know why some judges don’t quite grasp that.”
It took us weeks to find the Callahans and confront them with the allegations outside a residential complex in Westborough.
Housing court records show the couple is now being evicted from that location, too. On Tuesday, the property owner secured a judgement for a little more than $12,000 in unpaid rent.
Meantime, police say the new Mazda SUV we saw them driving was actually a stolen rent car, disguised with the cancelled plates from their old Chevy Monte Carlo.
Russell Callahan is also facing criminal charges for stolen property and a license plate violation. They arrived at court for their criminal proceeding in an Uber.
A Westborough judge released the Callahans on their own recognizance and they are due back in court on February 13.
However, the stakes could be getting higher. During the hearing, the prosecutor said the Worcester County DA’s office is considering presenting the case to a grand jury for criminal indictment.
“These two are well known by law enforcement and the Commonwealth for being what’s known as ‘professional tenants’ doing this exact same thing,” the prosecutor said.
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