Former Guggenheim Museum curator Eileen Hickey is being accused in court of forging a missive to keep her rent-stabilized Tribeca loft, which her landlord says she has been renting out on Airbnb for five times what she’s paying.
Hickey says landlord Robert Moskowitz wants to evict her from the 1,800-square-feet two-bedroom loft at 460 Greenwich Street — where she has lived for 40 years — so he can hike up the current $1,500 rent.
She alleged in court papers that she’s been “mercilessly” attacked and harassed to line Moskowitz’s pockets.
Moskowitz sued Hickey a year and a half ago, claiming that she lives full-time at her East Village condo while charging $4,500 to visitors at 460 Greenwich Street on Airbnb, the New York Post reported.
Moskowitz’s attorney Carl Peluso said he also has proof that she’s illegally rented her Tribeca pad: an October 2015 letter from Adam Berman, an executive director at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, that states Hickey was in the pad “except for vacations and medical appointments” during his stay in 2012. Berman wrote in an email that he “did not send the attached letter,” and Hickey coped to forging it in court papers, according to the Post.
Last year, a housing court judge evicted a man who was renting out his stabilized luxury apartment at the Related Companies’ MiMa apartment tower, and an appellate court upheld the decision. State law prohibits tenants from profiting off their rent-stabilized units. [NYP] — Dusica Sue Malesevic