Meyer Chetrit appeared in court briefly Tuesday morning, where he and his brother Joseph are facing criminal tenant harassment charges that could see the landlords serve prison time.
Meyer spent about 15 minutes in front of the judge at Manhattan’s Supreme Court building, dressed in a tan cardigan, brown pants and a blue scarf hanging around the back of his neck. Joseph’s appearance had been waived due to an infirmity.
The brothers had already pleaded not guilty several months ago to two counts of tenant harassment. At Tuesday’s hearing, two of the LLCs involved in the case entered not-guilty pleas, and the defendants signed a consent protective order regarding the tenants.
Meyer gave a few quiet, one-word replies when questioned by the judge, and a few moments later the largely uneventful hearing was adjourned. The brothers are due back in court on April 29.
He was indicted in September by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office with two counts of harassment of a rent-regulated tenant in the first degree. Those charges are classified as a class E felony and carry a maximum sentence of four years in prison.
According to the allegations, Meyer had “waged a campaign of harassment” against two elderly, rent-regulated tenants in Chelsea over a period of five years, hoping they would move out so the building could be sold.
The tenants lived at 117-119 West 26th Street in Chelsea since the 1980s. Chetrit purchased the building in 2005 but allegedly failed to complete its conversion from commercial lofts to residential housing. The apartments are classified as “interim multiple dwellings” and overseen by the city’s Loft Board.
In addition to extended periods without heat and a ceiling collapse, the building has been without an elevator since September 2023, the DA’s office said. That year, part of the building’s unoccupied commercial section collapsed, prompting a partial vacate order.
“From winters without heat and unrepaired roofs causing leaks and ceiling collapses, these New Yorkers were forced to live in uninhabitable conditions,” Bragg said in a statement.
Joseph was indicted later in October and charged as a co-defendant.
The Chetrits’ arrest has become a lightning rod for tenant advocates.
State Senator Brad Hoylman-Sigal, who represents the Upper West Side where the brothers own the Park West Village on Columbus Avenue between West 97th and 100th streets, said he launched a confidential survey to determine the scope of the problem.
Elected officials on the Upper West Side have raised alarms about Chetrit’s management of the Park West Village, where tenants there have accused Chetrit of pocketing city rent subsidies without crediting them to renters’ accounts, and then pursuing eviction.
“Meyer Chetrit’s indictment echoes the pattern of harassment and mismanagement that tenants in my district have reported for years under his management,” Hoylman-Sigal said in a statement to The Real Deal. “No landlord should take taxpayer funds, bill tenants twice, and leave people in unsafe homes.”
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