Dallas Mechanic Says Code Compliance Officer Extorted Him for Months

The arrangement, as Oscar Rivera describes it, carried all the bureaucratic menace of a routine inspection and none of the paperwork. A Dallas Code Compliance officer contacted him in late September about violations at his car repair shop on West Illinois Avenue, a business he has owned and operated since 2015, then began requesting cash through Zelle. "She told me she could give me a ticket of $5,000 or I could pay $290 ... to her," Rivera said in a WFAA report. "Those were the options she gave me."

Rivera said he paid for more than two months before filing a police report with DPD on November 14. Investigators linked the phone number and Zelle account to 25-year-old Daelena Howard, who was identified in the report as a "Code Enforcement Officer I." Text screenshots obtained by WFAA show the messages shifting from transactional to desperate: "Can you send me something please?" and "I need the money I used to pay my car note." Howard was placed on administrative leave on November 24, and the city released a statement pledging "a thorough investigation."

This isn’t a new concept for Dallas Code Compliance. The most famous (or infamous) instance happened in 2013, when a Dallas code enforcement worker named Frankie Forshee, a 13-year city employee, was arrested on three felony bribery charges for doing essentially the same thing to businesses along C.F. Hawn Freeway.

Howard told WFAA she "has done nothing wrong" and characterized the relationship as a friendship. which Rivera disputes fullstop. When confronted on video at his shop, Howard grew emotional: "Friend, I will give you your money back. I'm not trying to be any kind of way. This is genuine." Rivera's attorney, Eric Durojaiye, called the behavior "appalling" and "predatory." Rivera said he wants accountability, not just for himself: "If she can do this to me, I believe she is doing the same to many other people."