A lawyer who removed a surveillance camera from a Lloyd Goldman-owned apartment building in 2015 agreed to pay $700 to make the court case go away.
The attorney, Arthur Schwartz, argued that the camera was used to harass his client Ruth Berk, a 94-year-old woman who occupies a rent-controlled penthouse at BLDG Management’s [TRDataCustom] 95 Christopher Street in the West Village. “I would gladly pay a small sum again if it helped abate the harassment of an elderly person by a landlord,” Schwartz told the New York Post.
After removing the camera, which had been installed above his client’s apartment door, and handing it over to the Attorney General’s office, Schwartz was charged with grand larceny.
Schwartz, her legal guardian, argued that the camera was part of a scheme to evict his client from the apartment, for which she pays a mere $700 a month in rent. Meanwhile, Goldman alleges that Berk owes $27,000 in unpaid rent.
Berk, a former cabaret singer, has been living in the apartment since 1961. She shares the unit with her daughter. A similar apartment on the same floor rents for $7,000 a month, according to the Post. [NYP] — Konrad Putzier