FRANKLIN CO., VA – “It’s not about the money for us,” Angela Smith said.
More than a year after winning a racial discrimination case, Angela Smith says her family is still waiting to be paid.
“It was to have her [Lazy Cove Campground Owner Regina Turner] no longer running that property, or doing it the legal way,” Smith said.
The lawsuit dates back to 2020, when Smith and her family bought a camper and leased a spot at Lazy Cove Campground at Smith Mountain Lake.
They say that when the owner, Regina Turner, found out Smith’s husband was black, things changed.
“The owner reached out to my best friend and just basically let her know that she felt like she’d been deceived, she felt like she’d been lied to, and had she known that my husband was black, that she would have never leased the lot to us,” Smith said.
The situation eventually led to a fair housing complaint - and a lawsuit.
“The biggest piece for us is for her to no longer be able to do to someone else what she did to us,” Smith said.
Now, more than a year later, Smith says they’re still waiting for that judgment to be paid.
Court documents show Turner owes more than one million dollars and has been held in contempt twice for failing to pay.
“We wanted her to comply with fair housing laws and so we agreed to take a lower amount if she paid by a certain date that lower amount,” Smith said.
Smith says that the agreement also required Turner to take a fair housing class, post fair housing signs on the property, and hire a property manager to run the campground.
“She never took a fair housing class. It was evident that she was not going to do anything to comply with any of the rules,” Smith said.
A judge appointed a special commissioner in January to sell the property at public auction.
“If it actually happens, I will feel like we finally wanted from the beginning, and what we wanted from the get-go was for her to not be able to run that campground in the way that she had been running it,” Smith said.
The auction was recently scheduled for June 10.
Smith says this case is about accountability and making it clear there’s no place for racism.
“For me to see it firsthand, it just floored me that someone could feel that way about someone they don’t even know, just based on the color of their skin,” she said.
10 News reached out to Turner’s attorney, who says they have no comment.