Crown Heights Rallies For Tenant Amid 'Bizarre' Harassment Claims

CROWN HEIGHTS, BROOKLYN — Crown Heights rallied this weekend around a local tenant who accused his landlord of “bizarre” harassment that featured sewage, squatters, drug use and chickens, according to activists, court records and reports.

Council Member Chi Ossé, State Assembly Member Brian Cunningham and about 150 locals gathered Sunday outside 972 Park Place to support tenant and former super Francis Roberts, who told Brownstoner his refusal to accept a buyout made his life a “living hell.”

Roberts, who has filed suit against landlord Yehuda Gruenberg, contends he has been under siege ever since Gruenberg purchased the building last April, according to court records and Brownstoner's report.

A request for comment sent to Gruenberg's lawyer was not returned.

Roberts list of typical complaints include holes in the walls, sewage backing up through his kitchen sink, gas shut offs, mold, water leaks and broken electrical outlets — problems that make up only a small share of 225 outstanding housing violations listed for the property, court and city records show.

But the complaints get odder when Roberts accuses Gruenberg of inviting "unhoused drug-users to live in and around the building and intentionally harass other tenants,” the suit reads.

Among the unhoused guests was Aaron Akaberi, a man the New York Post reported appeared in court wearing a printout of the seven commandments as a hat and a shirt made of religious texts, according to affidavits filed with the suit.

(The news outlet, known for its subtly, dubbed him "The biggest weirdo in NYC" that September week in 2016.)

The group set up tents and portable toilets, took drugs and brought in chickens, all of which created a slurry of noise, waste and garbage on the block, according to court records and reports.

In one affidavit, a neighbor states they were told the situation would end when the landlord was “finished with another tenant,” and that the tented visitors were “there at the behest of the landlord.”

Attempts to disband the squatters' “tents, garbage and human waste” were met with one of Akaberi "violently" swinging a pole to prevent them, the affidavit reads.

“Mr. Akaberi himself repeatedly said ‘I’ll kill you’ to those trying to throw away the garbage,” according to the affidavit.

According to the lawsuit, one of Akaberi's "associates" told a neighbor they were there to help “get that n----- out of his unit.”

The other neighbor describes how she confronted the landlord over the untenable situation, who told her that he had no obligation to deal with the situation, which was now affecting the entire block.

Despite frequent calls to police, the toilets, tents, and garbage were removed only just before the announced rally, Chris Hassan, an organizer with Crown heights CARE Collective, a group that got involved with Roberts’ plight early on, alongside the Crown Heights Tenants Union and Legal Services NYC, told Patch.

The landlord, Hassan said, “knew we were having a rally, that there were going to be cameras here,” and removed much of the encampment earlier last week.

“Even the night before, there was still garbage here,” Hassan said, “but by the morning, it was cleared out.”

The hundreds in attendance were a result of not only long standing community groups coming to help, but also Roberts’ neighbors, who decided to revive a long dormant block association to find a solution to the problems allegedly brought on by Gruenberg, according to the lawsuit and Brownstoner.

Neighbors met in their apartments this fall, and on Sunday, outside of Roberts’ home to show their support.

“It’s overwhelming,” Roberts told Brownstoner earlier this month of his block’s support, “I never thought that people that don’t know me would come out and support me, and it is overwhelming. There are still good people in the world.”