A disabled Christiansburg woman who rented an apartment in a boarding house owned by state Del. Marie March, R-Floyd County, for about nine months last year has filed a federal lawsuit against March and her company, Big Bear Properties LLC.
In her complaint, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia in Roanoke, Debra Long, a 66-year-old retiree, alleges that March engaged in “intentional and unabated discrimination against an elderly woman” and that she took no action to prevent the “severe sexual harassment” by one of the property’s employees.
According to her suit, Long suffered “severe emotional distress, which exacerbated her physical disabilities, caused her to seek counseling, and, even today, has left her unable to properly sleep or live her life normally,” and she is now seeking “actual and punitive damages.”
Long has since been diagnosed with major depression disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder, “from the harassment, discrimination, and hostile environment defendants promoted,” the complaint says.
When reached by phone Monday, Long said she was unable to discuss her case due to the pending litigation. Kristi Kelly, a consumer protection attorney from Fairfax County who filed the suit on Long’s behalf, also declined to comment.
The new federal suit isn’t Long’s first attempt at holding March responsible. Cardinal News first reported the dispute in December 2022 after Long filed a complaint with the Virginia Fair Housing Board against March, alleging that the lawmaker had “failed to make a reasonable accommodation” for her disability and has engaged in “intimidation, coercion and harassment” against her by having her adult grandson and state-paid caretaker removed from the property.
Long said on Monday that the Virginia Fair Housing Board complaint “is still ongoing, but should come to a close fairly soon.”
March, whose sole term in the House of Delegates is set to expire in January after she lost a primary fight against Del. Wren Williams, R-Patrick County, in June, did not respond to an email seeking comment Monday.
But last year March denied the allegations against her made in the Virginia Fair Housing Board complaint — which are largely identical to those in the federal suit — stating in an email that Long’s grandson was “living on the property illegally without a lease” because the property’s by-right zoning doesn’t allow for more than one tenant. She also denied that the tenant who Long alleges harassed her works as her property manager.
Long has relied on a wheelchair for decades. According to her federal complaint she struggles with activities of daily living, “including preparing meals, bathing, doing laundry and getting around,” and she relies on her grandson to serve as her Medicaid-approved caregiver.
Long moved to Apartment 2 at 3215 Roanoke St. in Christiansburg in early March 2022. The building is next to the Bear Dance Market & CBD Cafe. March listed the residential property for sale on May 31 for $775,000. The listing was removed five months later.
According to the federal complaint, the maintenance man and co-tenant at the apartment complex started harassing Long and her grandson shortly after she moved in. “Within a week, he was caught peeping into Ms. Long’s bathroom, and, in May 2022, exposed his genitalia to Ms. Long while making sexually suggestive comments,” the document states.
Long also alleges that the man called her “day and night” and shouted at her through the windows. When she refused his unwelcome advances, “he threatened to have her evicted.”
March denied that the accused was working for her at the time. “[He] is a tenant living on the property and is not my property manager,” she said in the email from December 2022, adding that she won’t comment on Long’s allegations of sexual harassment and stalking.
Concerned for her own and her grandson’s safety, Long sought help from the Southwest Virginia Legal Aid Society, a nonprofit law practice providing free civil legal services to low-income residents of 17 counties and four small cities in Southwest Virginia.
The group advised her to seek a protective order for herself and her grandson, which the Christiansburg General District Court granted on Sept. 8, 2022, for a period of two years, prohibiting the man from seeking contact with Long. The order also prohibited him from parking in the parking areas in front of Long’s apartment and from mowing the lawn when Long’s vehicle is parked outside.
But Long’s complaint alleges that the man continued to harass her, “including by threatening to rape and kill her,” the document says.
The man was eventually charged with two separate counts of stalking, a Class 1 misdemeanor, and he was found guilty of one charge in October this year.
March also refused Long’s requested accommodation for her grandson and caregiver, “based on the false representation” that she was not required to follow housing laws. “March even stated that she was not running a ‘nursing home,’ confirming that her decision was based on animus against Ms. Long’s age and disability,” the complaint says.
The dispute escalated on Sept. 12, 2022, when March visited Long’s unit accompanied by Christiansburg police officers who served her grandson with trespassing papers and removed him from the property.
“Thanks to March’s retaliatory actions, for nearly three weeks, Ms. Long was left alone in her apartment, unable to eat properly or get around, and forced to endure the trauma of her harasser living doors away,” the complaint says. Consequently, Long was forced to move out of the apartment, “and into a second apartment while still paying rent.”
Long alleges in her complaint that despite her attempts to resolve the dispute through the administrative process, March has since “tried to intimidate Ms. Long into dropping her claims, using March’s position as a state delegate to suggest that Ms. Long is fighting a losing battle.”
The complaint says that because of March’s alleged discrimination Long has suffered “financial and emotional damages, … including but not limited to: paying for a hotel and second apartment so that her grandson and caregiver could attend for her needs, … the emotional distress and humiliation of having her grandson removed from the apartment, … the emotional distress of being forced to live alone without a caregiver for nearly three weeks; the exacerbation of her physical symptoms and disabilities; and other emotional and financial harms.”
Long said in the brief phone interview Monday that she has not had any contact with March for several months, and that she doesn’t wish to do so. “She can contact my lawyers,” Long said.
The two women would face each other in court — a date for a jury trial has yet to be set.
