Fort Worth property loses animals & tax break days after I-Team investigation
FORT WORTH – Days after the CBS News Texas I-Team exposed an illegal dump in Fort Worth, the property has lost its property tax break and many of its animals.
In May, we watched a trailer drop off more than half a dozen horses at the property along Randol Mill Road. Now, just weeks later, they are in the custody of the City of Fort Worth. Officers with animal control, code enforcement and police worked together to round them up this week as part of an "ongoing investigation." Officers also loaded up one of two donkeys that had been on the property for at least the last few months.
The seizure comes as the Tarrant Appraisal District also takes a second look at the property.
Property records show the land is worth nearly $1.4 million. It received an agricultural exemption in 2017; since then the owner has paid less than $200 in property taxes each year. According to an application filed that year, the property was home to horses, goats and chickens. But when the I-Team visited the address on multiple occasions this spring, we found no sign of those animals, just two donkeys.
Then TAD asked the owner to re-apply for the exemption, and the horses suddenly arrived.
Two days after our first I-Team report, TAD inspectors visited the property. According to TAD records, the owner claimed the horses "stayed on the property year around," but inspectors said the evidence indicated otherwise. They noted there were "very little droppings" and no "well used paths to and from the grazing areas."
TAD denied the application and revoked the exemption.
But the dump remains.
Records show Fort Worth police officers and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality investigated the dump in May 2022, with the TCEQ ordered the property owner and property manager to remove all of the debris.
Property records show the land is owned by Dorex, Inc., a company with a residential address in Dallas. We could not find a website or phone number for Dorex, and the man who answered the door at the home said he did not know anything about the property.
A woman named Shahida Ejaz is listed in business filings as a director of Dorex. According to a TCEQ report from 2022, investigators communicated with Ejaz's son, Shahzad Chaudhry, and listed him as the property owner.
Chaudhry, a onetime Democratic candidate for Congress, has denied that he is the owner and refused to speak with the I-Team for weeks. This week, through his attorney, Chaudhry said while his mother owns the property, she is out of the country and took sick to travel back to take care of the matter.
Fort Worth council member Gyna Bivens said she has spoken to Chaudhry, and that he has possession of a TCEQ agreement to clean up the property. According to Bivens, once the agreement is signed there is a 30-day deadline to remove the debris. "He wants to have all his resources lined up," said Bivens. "There's equipment needed to bring these tires out. There's equipment needed to get this trash hauled off."
A TCEQ spokesperson confirmed the agreement includes a $15,000 fine, which would be reduced to $12,000 if at least a partial payment is made by June 10.
Neither Chaudhry nor his attorney would answer questions about the conversation with Bivens, but he did say he and his brothers are trying "to address the issues with the property even though they have no legal responsibility whatsoever."
