Deed theft cases threaten to deplete NY’s Black generational wealth
Deed theft cases continue to plague New York City’s Black community as many long-neglected neighborhoods slowly transform into trendy districts.
Homeowners say they’re finding themselves having to fend off rapacious developers who might first ask if an owner’s willing to sell, but later insist that it’s now time for them to sell.
AmNews readers have been coming forward to detail the continued harassment, badgering, and mental torture they face while trying to fight off real estate speculators eager to take their homes.
Carmella Charrington said her father’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, home at 212 Jefferson Avenue was sold out from under him by an out-of-state conservator. Her father, Allman Charrington, has been a partial owner of the house with his sister since the 1980s.
“My father has a conservator,” Carmella said, explaining he had someone appointed by a court to help him take care of his finances. She and her sister filed to be declared his legal guardians, but the court would not allow it.
Meanwhile, she claims their father’s Georgia-based conservator began liquidating his assets—including his Jefferson Avenue home.
“My father’s conservator allowed plaintiffs to file documents: There were plaintiffs who went to court and submitted whatever documents, whatever fake index, to make it look proper to say that they were going to sell this property,” she said. “That’s how it ended up being sold—because my father’s conservator signed off…If you look at the deed, they just signed off with a whole bunch of people saying they were heirs of the property, and this had never even [gone] in front of a probate court at all.”
Carmella claims the 12 people listed alongside the name for her father’s conservator on the January 12, 2024, sale transaction did not go to probate court to prove they had legitimate rights to the property—yet they are listed as sellers of the property in a deal that records the transfer of 212 Jefferson Avenue to the Long Island City-based company 227 Group LLC for a total of $1.4 million.
The owners of 227 Group LLC are Etai Vardi and the brothers Elliot and Joseph Ambalo. These three have become infamous property flippers who were profiled by The City just last year as “Speculator Bros Ripping Off Heirs and Evicting Tenants Across NYC.” Allegations are that they use their company to contact distant heirs of deceased property owners and get them to claim a partial ownership status, which they can then sell to the Ambalos and Vardi.
The suspicion of fraudulent activity during the sale of 212 Jefferson Avenue prompted an examination in court. Carmella said she has also brought her case to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who recently disclosed that her office can now prosecute anyone who fraudulently steals a property owner’s home title or deed. These kinds of crimes now qualify as larceny and could lead to prison time for perpetrators.
Even though the case has not been decided yet, Carmella and her family say they were terrorized on January 24 this year when their home was broken into in broad daylight by speculators wielding hammers and chisels who used a range of tools to chip away at the front door with New York City police standing by and watching from the sidewalk. The speculators had told the police that they owned the property, so even though they could hear Carmella and her father screaming inside the house, the police somehow believed the speculators were doing nothing wrong.
RELATED: Deed theft can now lead to prison time, AG James says
Since she started fighting to keep the property, Carmella Charrington has begun working with other property owners suffering some of the same problems. “The system is failing us,” she said. “If you don’t know, and if these people are coming to you and they’re telling you your property’s sold, you think that [it’s the truth].” Charrington and other owners have formed a coalition they’ve named Hands Off of Bed Stuy/East New York Land Trust that aims to help owners join together to support each other.
Rachel Cyprien, who is among those who have joined the coalition, has been in a battle to get back the title to the multi-family home she purchased in Canarsie, Brooklyn, in 1998 with her father, Mecene Cyprien. Cyprien was a few months behind on her mortgage, in a deep depression and suffering from insomnia after the breakup of a 10-year relationship. A trusted friend told her she should contact Francklin Etienne, who was in the business of helping people when they faced the possibility of a foreclosure.
But instead of helping, Cyprien claims Etienne worked with a now-disbarred attorney, Andrien J. Wooley, to convince her to put her property in Etienne’s name while he supposedly worked to pay off the house debt. Although she initially agreed to do so and gave mortgage payments totaling $25,000 to Etienne for some nine months, Cyprien ultimately thought better of the plan and told Etienne she no longer wanted to do it. She stopped giving him the funds to pay her mortgage, but has not been able to get the deed to her property back.
Cyprien is currently suing Wooley and Etienne in Brooklyn’s Supreme Court.
Cyprien was in attendance when AG James held a community event this past June at Bed-Stuy’s Restoration Plaza to educate homeowners about deed theft ploys. “It was standing room only,” Cyprien said. “There were so many people in there!
“You know, no one talks about this; I know I didn’t talk. Here I am, an educated—fairly educated—Black woman. I’m a broker, right? And still I was embarrassed—too embarrassed to talk about what was happening to me. But when they had this, so many people came out, and what astonished me out of everything was the fact that out of everyone in there––the room was full, filled to capacity––everyone was Black. Latisha James was saying this is happening to Black and Brown people, but I didn’t see any Brown people in there. What I saw were Black people.
“The room was filled with Black people whose homes are being taken away or were taken away already. It’s really disgusting. And this woman who’s from my alma mater, Medgar Evers, spoke. She said the worst part about all of this is the amount of money—the generational wealth—we’ve lost. I mean it adds up to billions.”
New Yorkers who believe they may be a victim of deed theft can contact the attorney general by phone at 800-771-7755, by emailing deedtheft@ag.ny.gov, or by filing a confidential complaint. Homeowners who need free housing counseling and legal assistance can contact the Homeowner Protection Program at HOPP online or call 855-466-3456 to get help.
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