A deed theft that wasn’t deed theft has led to: state Attorney General Letitia James denying what her own office said, a showboat councilman playing the victim to the NYPD and Mayor Zohran Mamdani launching a whole new city office.
The shady ownership of a Bedford-Stuyvesant brownstone yielded yet more twists and turns Friday as Mamdani unveiled the Mayor’s Office of Deed Theft Prevention alongside James and Councilman Chi Ossé — just two days after the pol’s controversial arrest during an anti-eviction protest at the home.
The prolifically online Ossé has repeatedly claimed the woman whose eviction he was trying to block Wednesday was the victim of deed theft — an assertion refuted by the AG’s Office.
But James, speaking at mayor’s event in Brooklyn on Friday, seemed to cast it as indeed deed theft.
“We saw the result of these scams on Wednesday, not too far from here, and that is why we established the homeowner protection program,” she said. When confronted by a reporter after, James offered a meandering response.
“Technically it wasn’t a deed theft. It emanated from deed theft,” James said when quizzed by a freelance journalist.
“It originated from deed theft, but it was an eviction proceeding,” she continued. “And we had been involved in that case for some time. We analyzed it. But, at the end of the day, I’m glad that the council member focused on bringing to light the problem of deed theft.”
Ossé and three protesters were arrested after two-hour standoff outside the Jefferson Avenue brownstone, where city sheriff’s and marshals were slated to conduct a legal eviction.
The lefty councilman — who claimed that NYPD officers gave him a concussion as they pulled him to the ground — argued his constituent Carmella Charrington had been the victim of deed theft and was being wrongly tossed from her home.
But James’ office had investigated the situation and concluded it was a property dispute between the heirs and relatives of the home’s former co-owners.
Records show the property has a complicated history, but was ultimately bought by a company, 227 Group LLC, for $1.4 million in a sale that was approved by a Georgia court-appointed conservator overseeing the estate of Charrington’s dad.
But Charrington claims the conservator for dad Allman — a ward of the state who suffers from Alzheimer’s, court records show — broke the law by signing off on the sale and never filed documents showing where the $1.4 million went.
Charrington had recently been ordered to bring her father to court. But she failed to do so and ended up spending five days in Rikers Island on a contempt charge.
She was released one day before NYC sheriff’s officers and marshals tried to evict her on a judge’s order, leading to the protest and Ossé’s arrest as he tried to block authorities.
A representative from 227 Group LLC vehemently denied the deed theft accusation.
James’ office did nothing to clear up the confounding comments by the attorney general after Mamdani’s announcement.
“Attorney General James has long said that the displacement of Black and Brown families from their generational homes is a crisis, and she has led the fight against it for years,” her office said in a statement.
Former city Comptroller Scott Stringer agreed that deed theft was a serious problem, but castigated Ossé’s grandstanding protest.
“Any blatant political stunt that trivialized this critical issue does nothing for so many New Yorkers having their homes sold out from under them,” he said.
Mamdani’s new anti-deed theft office will be led by nonprofit lawyer Peter White, an activist from Access Justice Brooklyn, which specializes in foreclosures and other legal housing woes.
“Thanks to the efforts of Attorney General James and State Senator Zellnor Myrie, New York State finally made deed theft a crime in 2023,” Hizzoner said in Brooklyn Friday.
“Yet we know that injustice persists. That is why today I am proud to announce City Hall will lead that work through the creation of New York City’s first ever office of deed theft prevention.”
The office under the city Department of Finance, however, could be effectively toothless. The very state law that Mamdani touted gives New York’s Attorney General’s Office, now run by James, sole jurisdiction in deed theft cases.
— Additional reporting by Peter Senzamici
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