The Tenant vs The Rabbi

The Rabbi vs. the Tenant……The Rabbi looses!
By Ralph Barquin

After three years of litigation in Manhattan Housing Court, twenty four days at trial, and 25 witnesses presented by Rabbi Joshua Metzger of the Chabad of Midtown Manhattan, Judge Peter Wendt in a 23 page decision declared that the tenant had the right to stay in her home of 28 years. The decision is unlikely to be appealed as the Judge has declared credibility issues on both the part of Joshua Metzger and most of his congregants of his Chabad who testified on his behalf.

Ms Ross, represented by counsel, Bruce Wiener of Warshaw, Burstein, Cohen,Schlesinger ,& Kuh the tenant, proved that “The Rabbi” was not entitled to her rent stabilized apartment for the purported use as a religious library for his nearby Chabad. Ms Ross’s apartment is on the floor directly above the Rabbi’s newly refurbished apartment which he shares with his wife and his three children. When he bought the small brownstone in Murray Hill and reconfigured his triplex apartment he only built two bedrooms, thus the main question during the trial was did he really need a religious library or more bedrooms for his growing family.

During the course of the trial no documents were produced of this Rabbi’s graduation from any rabbinical school or any other official universities and no New York license was ever issued to perform marriages, which he claimed he did. No association of rabbis lists him among their memberships either. Next Mr. Metzger has raised millions of dollars through his many charitable companies that he runs and there has been no reporting to the IRS about any of these sums, and some are very large. Also there have been no receipts given to the donors or kept by the Chabad of these donations. Next the majority of these donations seem to have gone to support the lifestyle of this rabbi and his family and not spent on growing his small congregation.

When Mr. Metzger bought the building he purchased the building in a new non profit company that he formed just before the purchase. Mr. Metzger and his partner, in most of his corporations, is Rafe Konikov, the recently exposed rabbi in Southampton (New York Magazine’s “Chasids of Southampton”). They were advised by real estate lawyers that they could clear the building of rent stabilized tenants as they were a religious/educational corporation and if they said that they were going to use the apartments for those purposes, then they could clear the building. They intimidated two tenants and the third left as she obtained a payoff for the law fees that she had incurred up to then. Thus there was one tenant left but she was the most important one as her floor though apartment was contiguous to Metzger’s new living space.

He spent a $1,900,000 to buy the building and he did not pay the transfer tax as he was a non profit. He then hired a contractor to reconfigure his space .The cost was $900,000 cash. Well that contractor is now suing for the balance of his money. He joins a long list of liens on either the religious corps, all controlled by Metzger, or on Metzger personally. The Ruden Organization is also trying to collect $19,000 in back rent from this religious man who was a former tenant. Trying to collect is incredibly difficult as nothing is in Joshua Metzger’s name. His cable bill is in the name of a friend, another friend owns the car that he drives, and his American Express is in his wife’s name, so you can see that getting money from the rabbi is longtime pursuit.

So back to the eviction of the prime trouble tenant, she unfortunately had gone through this once before when an accountant named Paul Sessler bought this small brownstone and tried to get her apartment for his son. That trial was also lengthy but there too the court ruled in the tenants favor. The son was in junior high school in White Plains. Her law firm at that time was Fischbein, Badillo, Wagner & Harding and she went back to them to represent her this time. Bruce Wiener, her attorney was at Fischbein then, but during her case moved to another firm. She followed him and believed from the start that they did have the law on their side.

Many lawyers handled many motions and parts of this case and all knew and encouraged the rabbi to settle it and he ignored all the suggestions. He even appealed a hot water issue which is still pending.

The tenant has had one lawyer though the whole case but the rabbi has had three different firms represent him. As he does not believe in paying them they tend not to stay. Persuasion and guilt goes just so far.

His case was weak as all the things he said his organization did he could not prove they did do. Yes you can say you have a hospital program and it needs space in your brownstone to operate but you have to prove there is a person who actually goes to the hospital. Currently hospitals keep excellent records of volunteers and the time they spend in the hospitals and no hospital could confirm that this organization even came once. This is just one example of how each of their programs did not exist. There were five other programs that were all shams.

Speaking of shams the whole Chabad thing exists to give a person a roof over its head and his family and a continuing lifestyle. You will find most Chabads in residential areas as these areas have cheaper rents and then they buy them in a non profit corporation name and live rent free with no taxes ever paid. No real estate taxes and no personal taxes as most things are bargained for or paid for in cash. Just think if there are 8000 existing Chabads for the Lubavitch…. that is a lot of tax revenues not collected. Just in our area alone there are problems with Chabads in East Hampton, Florida and Southampton in residential areas over misrepresentation of the use of their houses.

The tenant believes in the system even though this scenario started with an eviction notice on November 1 2001 and went to trial in Feb 2002 and ended in March 2005 with a settlement of repayment of all fees she incurred during the litigation. America justice is very expensive and most people would not have had the means or the stamina to follow though with this type of litigation. She also believed that her lawyer was top notch and made every witness of theirs a win for the tenant’s side. He “out lawyered” every lawyer that the Chabad brought in.

Justice was served but the case continues to remain under reported and secret. Most judges submit their decisions on their cases to “The Law Journal” for publication. Judge Wendt we assume did not publish his decision as he called Metzger a liar. I thought it was against the law to lie under oath and if you did there were consequences.

The New York Times in their follow up article (March 27, 2005) never mention that the landlord lost as he lied. But they are also the paper that gives this organization free full page ads for the Lubavitch to raise funds, two in the last month (4/8/05 and 4/22/05). I think the Times has a problem saying anything negative about the Orthodox community. Letters to the Editor have never been answered.

Everybody steps on eggs when treating this group…...