Zorikh's New Illegal Lockout Trial, Day 4: The Grand Finale!

 This particular trial day turned in to a bit of a dumpster fire, as things unexpected and unprepared-for threw me off my game, but there was a strong finish! Let me tell you about it...

Developments over the previous weeks inspired me to try a bold move: first I would offer a settlement. If the Defendants refused (as I expected they would) I would hit up the judge for a summary judgement in my favor. 

So before the regular proceedings from last week could resume, I made my offer: In light of the decision rendered by Judge Weisberg in the HP case, and the resultant case in Judge Capell's court, and in the interest of not having two court proceedings at the same time, give me a key to the front door of the building and the door to my room and we start working together to meet Judge Capell's demand that all the tenants get back into a safe, legal 182 Graham Ave.

Charles Marino, defense attorney for Port Rich Realty, answered with a well-practiced litany of fabrications, obfuscations, misdirections, and accusations until the Honorable Judge Jack Stoller stopped him right there and said, "I take it, then that you are not accepting the offer?"

I had wanted to answer the statements by Marino, but Judge Stoller stated that things said in such an instance were not admissible. This came into play later.

But as Judge Stoller began to resume the proceedings, I tried to make my motion for a summary decision, based on the fact that Al Hatem, Port Rich Realty's "non-litigation attorney" and former property manager, had last week revealed that there was no one at Port Rich whose job it was to realize the parts of the building that were supposed to be under the Vacate Order. I believed that the duty to caretake those particular parts of the building should then go to the people who were most familiar with those parts of the building and actually lived there.

However, Judge Stoller then informed me that petitioners can't make motions for summary judgments.

So we picked up where we had left off last week, me questioning Mr. Hatem.

At that point I was already a little off my game. Also, it having been a busy week end weekend preceding, I was not as prepared as I could have been. But I did get to do one thing I had ben planning for: Introduce evidence of tenants registered and rents paid.

Mr. Hatem's position was that he could not remember ever collecting more than one rent check for each floor per month. This is obvious BS, because during the nine years (1997 - 2006) that he was property manager, the building was an SRO, and he had been collecting  up to fifteen different checks at any one time.

Since Marino had asked Hatem about the $1 rent that I was to pay due to DHCR's determination that I was eligible for reduced rent, I asked Hatem what rent he would have charged for the floor, even a ballpark figure, over or under $1500 (I knew that back when there was a Master Tenant on the floor, he paid $1500 a month). Hatem said he could not remember and Marino objected (of course). Judge Stoller overruled the objection, but Hatem still "couldn't recall," so I asked if he might remember if I showed him some figures.

I submitted into evident the DHCR rent registrations that had been made since Por  Rich Realty acquired the building in 1996. There were only two. One was for $380 a month, the other for $395.

Of course Hatem could not recall this, but had to admit that was a pretty low figure for an entire flor. When pressed as to whether there were other tenants on the floor that had not been registered, he said that those tenants (who were listed on different years) were the only tenants on the floor at that time. This is despite the fact that I had been a tenant also at that time.

I asked Hatem what Port Rich Realty's plans were for the building, He gave a vague answer about making the building legal according to city orcers. I tried to ask him if they intended to get the vacated tenants back in, but questions in that direction were objected to as "speculation," which was sustained several times.

So, having lost momentum, I closed my questions, and awaited Priscila Gerena, the landlord's daughter who had presented herself as the nea Building Manager, to take the stand, as she had called in to this "virtual" trial and was waiting in the "virtual " witness' waiting room. But Marino threw me off by saying he had no further witnesses.

I was asked if I had any further witnesses. Now, during the week I had gotten in touch with a few former tenants of the building and asked if they could be witnesses to prove that multiple people had lived and paid rent on the same floor at the same time. However, I truly expected the trial to go on for at least one more week, and none of these witnesses were really ready.

One of them had called in, but I had not prepped him well enough and it was a big challenge just to get him to describe where his room was in the building. Another did not realize that she might need to have proof of rent payments, and so was live on camera cursing me for asking her to find them at short notice as she was digging through her files. 

Eventually Judge Stoller asked how proving that the building had been run as an SRO proved that a rent-stabilized tenant had the right to access the common areas of the third floor. The truth is that I wanted to establish that Hatem's testimony was unreliable, and that any testimony they might make should be viewed with a healthy degree of skepticism.

But in the end I decided that the judge was sharp enough to see what I was getting at and, more importantly, through Hatems selective memory, to realize that Pot Rich Realty had been running an SRO all along.

So with no more witnesses to be called by either side, it was time for any last evidence to be presented.

At this point Marino called out that Judge Stoller had taken judicial notice of Judge Weisberg's decision in the HP case when I had mentioned it in my settlement offer. Judge Stoller corrected him; he had not taken judicial notice. So Marino had to present the decision as evidence.

I objected, as much to echo what Marino had done as all trial long as anything else. My stated reasons were described by Judge Stoller as more arguments against what was in the order than reasons for objecting, but he heard them, and he accepted the evidence.

Then Marino gave his closing argument. In it he said...

• I was seeking not just the key to the front door, but also to be restored to possession of the Vacated room.
• That my use of the kitchen and bathroom would violate the Certificate of Occupancy, which said that the Third Floor is one apartment, and that I admitted that I would be violating the C of O.
• That it was not in dispute that doing so would violate the C. of O.
• That Judge Weisberg's Order, that the room is an illegal SRO and thus providing means of egress from it would be futile, meant that I could no longer be a tenant of 182 Graham Ave.
• That the building was unsafe and had been condemned, meaning that I would never be able to return, according to the DHCR Rent Order.
• That I had access on demand, as was evidenced by the fact that I was in the building at that moment and had been for the entire trial.
• And finally, that if I wanted access to the property in my room, all I had to do was contact Building management to arrange it.

In my closing statement, I commended Marino on his steadfast loyalty to his clients, and how it was not his fault that he only had the info they gave him and had never actually been to the building. Then I countered each of his arguments:

• It was stated that this about the front door key. Anything else was a "since you mentioned it..." thing.
• I never said that I would be violating the C of O, and in fact, I would not be. (to this, Mario Objected, and I talked over his objection with the same force and duration as he stated his, because it had already been established that you cannot object to a closing statement. Also: he said that I was lying. I made sure to point out that if he was going to use that L word about me, I now felt no compunction against using it against him and his client).
• Judge Weisberg's decision did not take into account the possibility that the room may become part of a legal apartment, allowing me to return to it. Also, as a Rent Stabilized tenant, I still had access to the kitchen and bathroom until legally evicted.
• The building was not unsafe, had not been condemned, and I took this opportunity to interpret the "$1-a-month" rent order (which I was told I could not do during the trial, although Marino had been doing it all along) as what it really is: a way to secure the room for my eventual return. The idea that someone would pay a dollar a month to secure a room that was "condemned" and never be returned to was absurd!
• I did not have "access on demand," I had access at the will, whim, and ability of my neighbor.
• And finally, I saw no reason to expect that, considering the hostility I had been met with so far, that accessing my room through Port Rich Realty would be any less cumbersome and unpredictable than it had been under Antonio Hernan Cook. West Broadway Glass v. Namaskaar all over again.

When all that was done, I broke out of the mere refutation of the defense's canards to talk about the true matter of the case.

As Judge Stoller had returned to several times during the proceeding, I am a rent-stabilized tenant of 182 Graham Ave, Brooklyn. As such, I have certain rights. It doesn't matter whether I am smart enough, creative enough, hard-working enough, or lucky enough to find a place to sleep without rain falling on my head, a right is a right, and I have the right to access the non-vacated parts of this building.

This case is not just about me. If I give up, then what about people who are less fortunate than me? I will be setting a precedent that unscrupulous landlords can get away with doing this sort of thing. But if I keep on fighting, then people watching me can ask "if he is willing to fight so hard for what is right, how hard am I willing to fight?"

It started getting emotional for me at this point, and I could see Judge Stoller's brow crunch up as he stared intently at his screen in the Teams Meeting (maybe he was just concentrating because of the bad echo that had been going on through the whole day). It wasn't quite waterworks, but there was definitely a bit of smoke in my eyes as I mentioned the emotional journey I had been on through all this, and how such a simple mater was being turned into an epic struggle for every little thing. I made reference to m,y room and said that I was not going to go into the whole rigmarole of the definition of "room" because we all know what a room is.

Finally, it came down to on, last thing....

"Just...give me...the key."

Then I said that's it, I'm done, I rested my case, and the judge said that he would have a decision in one or two weeks.

NEXT: The Decision!