Woman housed disabled adults in home with overflowing sewage, GA official says
A woman running an unlicensed care home in Georgia had the cleanest room in her house while disabled adults living there were kept in “horrific conditions,” including in a basement infested with rats and overflowing with sewage, according to authorities.
Now, she is prison bound.
Law enforcement learned of the heinous living situation at the Lithonia home owned by Crystal Nasir, 43, nearly four years ago, after a 38-year-old man who lived in the basement called police to report the conditions, authorities said. He also told officers he had not received his prescription medication for a while.
The man told police that “he stayed in the basement of the home without heat or air conditioning, and that the basement was covered in sewage from a toilet that had overflowed with human waste,” the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office said in an Oct. 6 news release.
Police executed a search warrant at Nasir’s home in the Atlanta metro area a week later on Jan. 4, 2022, and found five disabled adults in Nasir’s care, according to the office.
In May 2024, she was indicted on charges of depriving disabled adults of essential services and exploitation of a disabled adult, court records show.
Nasir was found guilty of both charges during an Oct. 3 jury trial, the district attorney’s office announced.
Afterward, DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory A. Adams sentenced Nasir to 15 years, with 10 years to be served in prison and five years on probation, the office said.
Nasir’s defense attorney did not immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment Oct. 7.
When authorities searched Nasir’s home in January 2022, they discovered she was breeding dogs at the house while she was supposed to be caring for disabled residents as her full-time job, including five adults who were paying to live there, according to the district attorney’s office.
Police saw residents “walking around the home with feces caked to the bottoms of their shoes or their bare feet,” officials said.
They also found feces and mold in some of the residents’ rooms, where they slept on “raw mattresses” or “soiled bedding,” according to authorities. One of the rooms was said to be infested with bedbugs.
The residents staying in bedrooms in the basement, where there was no heat, also slept on “raw mattresses or with inadequate” bedding, officials said.
There was standing water on the ground, mold on the walls and a rat infestation, as well as a bathroom that was not working and covered in waste in the basement, according to the district attorney’s office.
“The toilet had overflowed onto the floors and left raw sewage throughout the living area of the basement,” officials said.
Instead of a toilet, residents were using a bucket, according to authorities.
Nasir, meanwhile, had her own “well maintained” bathroom, officials said.
In her room and home office, Nasir kept residents’ medications, mail, and as personal and financial documents, according to the district attorney’s office.
During the investigation, police learned Nasir put one of the residents, a 44-year-old woman with “severe mental health issues,” in charge of cleaning and cooking for herself and others every day, officials said.
The woman, who had been paying to stay at Nasir’s home, was never paid for any work over several years, according to authorities.
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