Both sides lose in home sale that turned sour

Dispute over rent escalates
Griffin didn't pay the rent, however, claiming she was promised three months free since the delay was Jimenez's fault. She has an e-mail from his real estate agent, Alina Carbonell, saying he'd made the offer.

Jimenez's lawyer, Erik Meder, told her that offer was never firm and insisted she pay rent or vacate the house.

Locked in a letter war with Meder, Griffin escalated her actions. She contacted the FBI, the Roswell Police Department, local media, the state attorney general's office and the governor's office, among others. She asked her congressman, U.S. Rep. Tom Price, for help, saying she felt Jimenez and Meder had deceived her. Price's office, in turn, contacted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Brendan Buck, a Price spokesman.

"I am a law-abiding American merely trying to purchase a home," Griffin wrote in mid-July in a letter to American Homebuyers, a nonprofit that helps low- to moderate-income families buy homes. "An illegal family fraudulently obtained a mortgage using a 1 yr old SSN, and appear to have all the rights in this situation — How can this be when they shouldn't even be in America?"

Wanted the sale to go through
She said she contacted anyone she could think of who might be able to help the sale go through.

Jimenez said she started making his life a nightmare. He claims she caused cosmetic damage to the house and intentionally clogged the plumbing, both of which she denies.

Griffin also went after Carbonell, the real estate agent. She contacted the Georgia State Real Estate Commission to try to get her license revoked. Carbonell said the threat to her reputation and to her career caused her so much stress she had to take a leave of absence.

Griffin said she reported Carbonell because the agent knew Jimenez's daughter's name was on the title from the beginning but didn't tell her right away. (Carbonell was not the real estate agent who originally advised Jimenez to use his daughter's name.)

In September, Meder got a judge to order Griffin to pay retroactive rent and get out of the house within a week.

Griffin then went to the upscale Atlanta restaurant where Jimenez worked as a cook and told his boss he was undocumented, which Jimenez said resulted in his firing.

"It was my last resort," Griffin said, "but once I realized my family had seven days to get out of a house that a family's not even legally supposed to own, I did go to his employer and I did let his employer know."

She also put bright red signs in the yard reading, "This house is owned by an illegal alien." When Jimenez tore them down, she put up new ones.

Wanted neighbors to share outrage
Griffin said she wanted the neighbors to share her outrage over what was happening.

"I don't feel bad for anything that happens to the Jimenez family at this point," Griffin said recently, "because no one feels bad that all I tried to do was buy a house, and I ended up living back with my mother."

In early October, plainclothes ICE agents showed up at Jimenez's apartment. They asked him about his residency status and his purchase of the house, then handcuffed him and took him away. He was released a few hours later and is due before a judge in January and could face eventual deportation.

His lawyers plan to apply to keep Jimenez in the country permanently, a process that could last several years. While it's pending, he will be eligible for a work permit. But even if he gets one, Jimenez will be living in limbo. His application to stay could be rejected, which means he still could be ordered to leave the country.

Jimenez has taken the house off the market but doesn't want to move his family back in amid the uncertainty, so they're still in the apartment that was supposed to be a transitional stop until they bought a bigger place.

Griffin hasn't tried to buy another home, in part because she can't afford to, so she and her kids are still staying with her mother.

Down the street, the Jimenez house sits empty.

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