Matthew Latterner of Legal Services speaks during a press conference announcing the lawsuit in East Harlem on March 14, 2024.
Photo courtesy of Community Voices Heard
An East Harlem landlord is allegedly stealing money, forcing poor living conditions and putting people’s lives in danger, a group of fed-up tenants claim in a new lawsuit filed on Thursday.
Nearly 40 tenants who live in five buildings on East 103rd Street allege that the properties’ landlord, Isaac Kassirer and his real estate firm, Emerald Equities, stole tens of thousands of dollars worth of security deposits and “unlawfully commingled them with the landlord’s own operating funds.”
Matt Latterner, an attorney from Legal Services NYC who is representing the plaintiffs, said that per law, security deposits are not the landlord’s money and must be set aside in trust.
“This is the tenants’ money that the landlord is holding on to,” Latterner said. “It’s a trust. The landlord isn’t allowed to mix this money up with their own money. They have to put it into segregated bank accounts. That’s the law in New York. Emerald Equities is an entity that mixes private equity money to turbo charge who is essentially a slumlord.”
The tenants rallied on March 14 on the front stoop of one of the buildings, located at 118 East 103rd St. in East Harlem, after Legal Services NYC and The Legal Aid Society filed the suit, saying that Kassirer is purposely avoiding repair work in an attempt to force them out and flip their rent-stabilized building to market-rate apartments.
Mold, blocked fire exits, holes in the roof
The suit also alleges that the buildings contain “rent-impairing violations” of living conditions, including a hole in the roof and blocked fire exits. As a result, dozens of tenants have started to withhold rent.
“Our landlord, Isaac Kassirer of Emerald Equity Group, doesn’t want to repair the issues in my apartment and my neighbors’…
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