Queens cemetery dogged by maintenance suit

The legal battles over Bayside Cemetery in Ozone Park are heating up again, with another plaintiff now coming forward to allege that Congregation Shaare Zedek has failed to maintain the property and the graves within it. The fresh lawsuit, which attorney Michael Buchman plans to file soon, will be in conjunction with one that’s been ongoing in State Supreme Court since 2009, according to the Queens Chronicle. In the 2009 suit, a Connecticut man whose grandmother purchased a so-called perpetual care plot, claims that the congregation failed to live up to the terms of their contract when it allowed the cemetery to fall into disrepair. Buchman has also argued that the congregation mixed funds for the synagogue with those for the cemetery. The Community Association for Jewish At-Risk Cemeteries, which is involved in a clean-up project at Bayside, is also named in the suit, with Buchman charging that the congregation created CAJAC in 2006 as a way to get out of its maintenance responsibilities. [Queens Chronicle]

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