Tensions flare as fight for Bed-Stuy’s 212 Jefferson Ave. has day in housing court

A tense courtroom argument erupted on July 14 over who owns the embattled Brooklyn home at 212 Jefferson Ave in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

The dispute centered on the right of activist Carmella Charrington to remain in her family’s brownstone was argued in front of Housing Court Judge Travis J. Arrindell, less than three weeks after her 84-year-old father, Allman Charrington, was seized in Brooklyn by New York City sheriffs and taken to Georgia.

Charrington family members and supporters had said that Allman had been walking with his grandson and great-grandchildren when officers surrounded them on June 26, placed him in an ambulance, and took him out of the state of New York to comply with the requests of a Georgia conservatorship.

The city has said the Sheriff’s Office removed Allman to comply with that court order and that Georgia officers accompanied him back to that state. But the Charrington family’s attorney, Tricia S. Lindsay, has noted that neither Allman nor his daughter and guardian, Carmella, was brought before a judge to be told why he was being detained, and he wasn’t allowed to ask for legal help before he was taken out of state.

Lindsay says that was a violation of his due process rights. “You cannot do that,” she said.

In Housing Court, lawyers for 227 Group LLC, the company that claims it paid $1.4 million in cash for the property in 2024 through a Georgia probate court, argued that Carmella Charrington should be held in contempt for not leaving the house.

Linda S. Burton, the attorney for 227 Group LLC, told the court that the case had already dragged on through multiple proceedings. She said her clients were “good faith owners of this property” and insisted that the eviction was lawful.

Burton argued that Carmella Charrington had “done an excellent job in delaying this case for 2 years” and that her clients had been prevented from physically entering it, even after the court allowed the eviction to go forward.

“This is a nightmare,” Burton told the judge: she argued that questions about who owns the property had already been settled in the Supreme Court and should not be argued in Housing Court. The debate over the $1.4 million sale, the Georgia conservatorship, and family claims to the money shouldn’t be a part of this basic, landlord-tenant case, she said.

Bernard Mitchell Alter, Carmella Charrington’s lawyer, said that the most important issue in the Housing Court case is whether the Georgia conservatorship is legal and has any authority to sell 212 Jefferson.

Judge Arrindell explained that Housing Court handles possession cases, not ownership disputes, and he noted that a possession order and warrant had already been issued in the case. Arrindell said that 227 Group LLC’s attorney, Burton, had not pointed out which court order Carmella Charrington had violated.

The judge said his earlier order had only called for people to be evicted from the first and second floors of 212 Jefferson, and not from the third floor, where residents still live.

“What provision in that order is Ms. Charrington in violation of?” Judge Arrindell asked the 227 Group LLC’s attorney.

Burton told the judge: “She admitted today she’s in possession; she hasn’t allowed them in; she has physical possession.”

“My order didn’t prevent her from being in possession; my order gave the Marshal the authority to take possession,” the judge responded.

“And she violated that order,” answered Burton.

“She’s not in violation,” Judge Arrindell countered. “I didn’t order her to do anything. I ordered the Marshall to take possession. If what you’re saying is true, then it would be common practice that we could hold tenants in contempt of court when they fail to give up possession of a property — that’s why we have warrants, that’s why we have Marshals, because people are not going to willingly leave the homes that they’ve lived in. You need an officer to remove them. If a tenant refuses to leave the apartment, the Marshal evicts them.

“…What you’re saying is that we should be bringing contempt against tenants who refuse to leave the apartment because the Marshal had to come and get them. There is no clear, unequivocal mandate. I did not order Miss Charrington to give up possession, that she needs to vacate the apartment. There’s nothing in my orders that says that. It says that the Marshal may execute on the warrant of eviction. The order is to the Marshal.”

The judge said the contempt motion was not the correct way to deal with the current status of 212 Jefferson.