By KAREN JUANITA CARRILLO
Carmella Charrington still wants to know where her 84-year-old father, Allman Charrington, is and why sheriff’s deputies were allowed to take him from a Brooklyn street while he was walking with his grandchildren.
On July 2, as temperatures reached 98°F, she held another emergency press conference in front of the Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone her family has owned for generations at 212 Jefferson Avenue. This was the second press conference since New York City sheriffs seized Allman Charrington on June 26. The first was held on June 30 outside the Manhattan office of New York Attorney General Letitia James.
This time, members of the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft, New York State Senator Jabari Brisport, Carmella’s attorney Tricia Lindsay, neighbors, and family supporters gathered in front of the property to warn about the dangers of guardianship courts and real estate speculation.
The Charrington family said 212 Jefferson has been owned by their family for 60 years. Allman Charrington is a named inheritor of an interest in the brownstone. In 2023, the property was sold for $1.4 million by Allman Charrington’s Georgia conservator and a group described as fellow heirs. Carmella Charrington and housing advocates have challenged the sale, arguing that those who sold the property did not have the right to displace the family members living there and Allman did not knowingly consent to the sale.
New York Attorney General Letitia James’s office has disputed the deed-theft framing of the 212 Jefferson case, describing the matter as a family dispute involving a Georgia conservatorship.
At the press conference, speakers said the issue could no longer be understood as only a property dispute. They said it had become a fight over whether an elderly Black man’s stated wishes on legal documents could be overridden by court orders issued across state lines.
“It should be an outcry,” Carmella told those gathered in front of her home. “Who can do this? But then, when I’m saying something, the first thing they say is, I don’t have jurisdiction. That’s the same thing I was saying: You don’t have jurisdiction; that’s why he’s here! Leave him alone!”
She said that Allman “ couldn’t do normal things — like go to an area — because of greed.
“He was born into wealth. This ain’t nothing new. My grandmother owns a house there. We own property all over. We were born into this. This is nothing new, but family is more important than a dollar: It’s always been. Once again, I thank you all for being here and supporting my father. We will get him back … I don’t care how bad it looks or how it seems: We will overturn it.”
Allman Charrington and his sister, Gertrude Keene, inherited 212 Jefferson in 1989. The mortgage on the property was paid off in February 2016. Over the next few years, as Allman traveled between Brooklyn and a property he had in Georgia, family members began to think that he needed assistance after health concerns arose.
In 2020, they tried to get court help in Georgia. Carmella said she and her sister did not go to court to lose authority over their father. She said he had executed a durable power of attorney (POA) in 2019, while he had capacity, naming the people he wanted to manage his affairs if he could not do so himself. However, once they petitioned the Georgia courts, Allman was placed under a conservatorship. After an August 2021 proceeding, Georgia attorney Luanne Bonnie was designated as his conservator, and Allman Charrington was treated as a ward of Georgia.
Evangeline Byars and members of the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft said something like this could happen to owners of any Brooklyn brownstone. They said residents who inherit homes in Black neighborhoods are increasingly vulnerable to the whims of the court system, real estate speculators, and agencies that tell families to turn to the courts for help.
At the press conference, speakers repeatedly argued that the POA over Allman Charrington remained valid and should have been respected before any court or law enforcement agency removed him from New York.
Tricia S. Lindsay, Carmella Charrington’s attorney, said the seizure amounted to a constitutional violation and an unlawful override of Allman Charrington’s own written instructions.
“Mr. Charrington was responsible and he took the opportunity, took the time, to put certain things in place, right? He executed a durable power of attorney, and he named the parties, the people that he wanted to take care of him and his affairs in the event that he could no longer do it himself, and right now his rights are being completely eroded,” Lindsay said.
Lindsay insisted that the durable power of attorney should speak for Charrington now. “The document speaks for him. He put it in place at a point in time when he had the mental capacity to speak for himself, for the time when he no longer had it, so, why are we ignoring it?” she said.
The Georgia conservatorship was later intertwined with the sale of the Bed-Stuy home, even though Carmella Charrington, her father, and family members were living there and contesting the transaction. The family and the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft have called the case deed theft, while Attorney General Letitia James’s office has said it reviewed the matter and does not consider it a deed theft case.
Brooklyn Civil Court Judge Rachel Freier ordered Carmella to bring Allman Charrington to court in response to Georgia’s efforts to return him there. When she did not, Carmella was held in contempt and spent six days on Rikers Island. Supporters said the family had expected the property and custody issues would continue to be argued in court. Instead, they said, a warrant or court order authorizing sheriffs to locate and hold Allman Charrington remained active.
On June 26, sheriffs saw Allman Charrington while he was out walking with his grandson and two great-grandchildren. Carmella Charrington told the Amsterdam News that officers surrounded the family, placed her father in an ambulance, and did not allow relatives to accompany him. The family said they were left without clear answers about where he was taken, whether he had access to medication, and who was responsible for his care.
A Department of Finance spokesperson emailed the AmNews a statement, saying that, “In accordance with a court order, the Sheriff’s Office located the individual and transported him to a local hospital. He was in the Sheriff’s safe custody with access to medical care until State of Georgia personnel accompanied him for the travel back to his home in Georgia.”
Lindsay challenged that explanation, saying the Sheriff’s Department should have brought Allman Charrington before a judge in New York before any transfer across state lines. “The court did not have jurisdiction over Mr. Charrington to seize him and ship him across state lines. They did not have that type of jurisdiction, and it was done without due process. He was not taken before the judge, and neither was Carmella, as his guardian … That is a violation of due process. You cannot do that,” she said.
New York law says that if someone is arrested because of an extradition warrant from another state, they must appear before a New York judge. The judge has to explain why they are being detained, and the person can ask for legal help. If they or their lawyer want to challenge the arrest, the judge will set a time for them to request a writ of habeas corpus or prove their detention is lawful.
When pressed by email to answer whether Allman Charrington was brought before a judge in New York before being transported out of state to Georgia, the Department of Finance did not respond.
“I do want to just say something directly to the sheriff’s office, which is that there is something incredibly ghoulish and disgusting about ripping a father away from his daughter,” said New York State Senator Jabari Brisport who stood with the Charrington family outside their brownstone on July 2. “I had just seen him a week before it happened. He was happy to be here. He looked like he felt safe to be here. This is his home.”
Brisport added that he would help raise money for Charrington’s legal fees. “The notion of being hit by all forces of people trying to steal a home, steal a body — this attempt to uproot Black people by taking the building, taking their bodies away — does not sit right with me,” he said. “I will be helping to fundraise for legal fees to ensure that they can do everything they can to bring Carmella’s father home, and this is an open call to the community to help in the fundraising to bring Carmella’s father home.”
