A woman described by prosecutors as a serial squatter has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Dallas, Texas, after a 2023 fraud case in which she used her father’s name to secure a lease from a young couple.
Heather Schwab pleaded guilty to felony fraud on July 27 and is set to serve the two-decade sentence, bringing an end to a pattern that authorities say left multiple property owners dealing with costly damage, unpaid rent and legal headaches, according to Dallas County court records.
Court documents show Schwab’s criminal history stretches back to 1999, with a long list of fraud- and theft-related allegations filed in both Colorado and Texas.
Since 2005, she has been evicted nearly 30 times and has also faced charges tied to fraud, check forgery, theft and failure to pay for various services.
Prosecutors said Schwab repeatedly avoided background checks by using a series of aliases, including Heather Ann Ruybal, Ann Ruybal, Anna Schwab, Rayes Ruybal and others, according to court filings.
Dallas County Assistant District Attorney Amber Moore said Schwab had turned the scheme into a way of life. “This is what she did for a living, moved into individuals’ homes knowing that she wasn’t going to pay rent and then exploited the eviction process in order to stay there for several more months,” Moore said, according to Denver7.
The 2023 case centered on Schwab’s dealings with homeowner Jessica Davis, whom she deceived into signing a temporary lease for a property in Rowlett, Texas.
Jessica Davis and her husband, Colin Davis, had purchased the four-bedroom Rowlett home in December 2022, according to Fox News.
Heather Schwab was sentenced to 20 years in prison after a long string of forgery, identity fraud, and squatting
Schwab was able to dodge background checks by using various aliases such as Heather Ann Ruybal, Ann Ruybal, Anna Schwab, Rayes Ruybal and more, according to court filings
Davis soon found out her job was relocating her to Florida for six months, so she decided to rent her house out to make some of that money back in her absence.
Davis listed the house on Zillow, which is where Schwab saw it and messaged Davis, Fox reported.
Schwab claimed that her real name was Rayes Ruybal and used a friend’s Zillow account.
After a background check provided by Zillow came back clean, Davis decided to go ahead and rent to Schwab.
Soon after, Schwab made excuses for failed payments and Davis never received any money from her tenant, according to Fox.
Through her own research and digging through old news articles, Davis was able to discover that Rayes Ruybal was Ruybal’s father, and her real name was Heather Schwab.
Davis’ search for Heather Schwab revealed a slew of articles about the woman’s previous fraudulent endeavors, she shared with Fox.
Soon after in 2024, ‘Ann Schwab’ rented a three-bedroom home from Denver landlord Stephanie Williams, Denver7 reported.
Jessica Davis rented her house out to Heather Schwab, not knowing that Schwab was using a fake name to hide her very searchable string of past crimes
Jessica Davis and her husband Colin ultimately ended up losing their house, after failing to make the mortgage payments that were meant to be covered by Schwab’s rental payments.
Schwab left the Davis’s house in an awful state, with trash strewn across corners and surfaces
Once again, the background check was clean, so Williams trusted her tenant until the payments stopped coming in by March.
Williams found out that Schwab had moved out of the house in September 2025, and left her 30-year-old ‘meth-addict, house-arrest, vehicle-stealing son’ Brandon Ruybal living there, she shared on her GoFundMe page she started to raise money needed to restore the house and deal with the methamphetamine contamination.
The landlord found meth pipes and needles strewn all over the house once it was vacated.
She wrote: ‘I had to bring in a meth testing agency, and my home is officially condemned due to meth levels. It is 8x the level of normal. It costs about $30k to have it cleaned, and insurance does not cover it.’
Schwab has been able to get away with her antics for decades by exploiting eviction laws which take at least 30 days to remove a tenant.
Schwab left her son living in Williams’ house while she was squatting at another property in Castle Rock, Colorado. Williams found meth pipes among the trash left behind by the squatters
Williams brought in a meth-testing agency into her home after Schwab vacated it. They found the house to be contaminated to a level that will cost $30,000 to deal with
Williams rented her home to Schwab, only to find it covered in meth pipes and piles of garbage
In both Texas and Colorado, the eviction process takes about 30 days if it goes uncontested, given all the notices and procedural hearings required to execute an eviction.
While Schwab was able to dodge her previous charges to an extent, serving short sentences throughout the decades, the long string of charges affected her most recent ruling in Dallas.
Moore said to Denver 7: ‘We wanted to make sure we highlighted the egregious nature of her conduct and that she had been evicted all these other times.’
Our News Outlet has reached out to the Dallas County DA’s office and Schwab’s attorney for comment.
