A tenant who hasn’t paid her $100-a-month lease in additional than a decade is again in court docket, preventing to carry on to the two-bedroom Queens condo she inherited via a controversial death-bed adoption, The Submit has discovered.
Maria DeTommaso, 74, has lived within the rent-controlled railroad flat on the underside ground of a Lengthy Island Metropolis row home since at the least 2002, the place neighbors say she causes many issues.
“I feel she’s a demon in human pores and skin due to what she places folks via,” mentioned Anjanie Narine, who has lived subsequent door to DeTommaso for greater than 20 years. “Each interplay along with her is destructive. She terrorizes everybody, and acts as if she owns the constructing.”
DeTommaso scored her candy lease deal when she moved in with an aged former dock employee, Nicholas “Nicky” DeTommaso, who had the unique lease on the condo. Days earlier than he died in 2009, the then 58-year-old Maria satisfied the 85-year-old retiree to undertake her.
9 years later, the state’s Division of Housing and Group Renewal granted DeTommaso “successor rights” to the condo, preserving its lease at $100 and permitting her to remain in perpetuity. Comparable models within the constructing now lease just under $2,000.
In the course of the time she has lived within the unit, neighbors say she has “terrorized” them by renting out a part of the condo on Airbnb, ushering in a gentle stream of dozens of vacationers from all over the world who rented rooms from her for $55 an evening, in line with complaints made to the Division of Buildings and on-line adverts.
One longtime fellow tenant within the six-unit constructing mentioned DeTommaso, who’s often known as Pamela Becker and Prema Deodhar, has even modified the locks on the entrance doorways and invited a gentle stream of veterans from a close-by shelter who’ve brought on havoc within the constructing.
For years, The Submit has documented makes an attempt by the constructing’s octogenarian homeowners, Sugrim and Kowsila Outar, to evict DeTommaso from the condo. They’re scheduled to return to Queens Housing Courtroom on Might 6.
“Her case has already gone via 5 of the judges right here in Queens, and benefited from each change within the housing legal guidelines since COVID,” mentioned Elan Layliev, the legal professional for the Outars who’s preventing to evict DeTommasso.
“[It’s been] a wild journey. Ms. DeTommaso has utilized each loophole within the court docket system to extend and delay this trial.”
For her half, DeTommaso advised The Submit final week the claims in opposition to her are exaggerated and designed to kick her out of her dwelling.
“I gained the succession,” she mentioned. “That is sick. I’m the authorized tenant. I’ve each proper to be right here and I don’t understand how folks can lie a lot. They’re attempting to evict me, however my lawyer says I don’t have to fret.”
DeTommaso’s lawyer, Zara Feingold, is a authorized support legal professional who works with the New York Authorized Help Group, in line with court docket paperwork and her LinkedIn web page, which implies DeTommaso doesn’t should pay her for illustration.
Below New York regulation, she additionally doesn’t should pay lease whereas the authorized case along with her landlords is ongoing, which is presently a decade. Nonetheless, she has prevoiusly mentioned she places lease cash into an escrow account so it may be paid after the authorized matter is settled.
DeTommaso, who lives along with her two canine — a miniature gray hound and a dachshund — advised The Submit she not too long ago broke her hip within the condo as a result of the landlords haven’t finished essential repairs. She mentioned her oven doesn’t work, and complained about roaches and mice within the residing house.
Nevertheless, in line with Layliev, DeTommasso is not going to enable staff contracted by the Outars into her condo and has beforehand employed homeless veterans to do the work and advised them to current the payments to the homeowners.
DeTommasso was born Pamela Rose Becker on March 1, 1951. She grew up in Washington DC and attended a sequence of posh non-public faculties. Her father served as US ambassador to Honduras through the Ford administration and her brother, Ralph Becker, is a former mayor of Salt Lake Metropolis.
A yoga fanatic, she confirmed up on the Lengthy Island Metropolis constructing to cat sit for a buddy within the late Nineties. When the buddy returned, she claimed she had nowhere to stay and requested Nicky if she might spend a couple of days, mentioned Narine.
She by no means left. Nicky, who was recognized within the neighborhood as “Uncle Nicky,” had moved to the condo in 1924 as an toddler. He lived there along with his mom, three brothers and two sisters, and stayed till his dying on July 15, 2009.
A loyal “Star Trek” fan, he performed stickball on the road when he was a toddler and chain-smoked cigarettes on the stoop, serving to his neighbors safe parking spots when he was older, in line with “Nicky D from LIC: A Narrative Portrait” by author and artist Warren Lehrer.
5 years after shifting in, DeTommasso secured Nicky’s energy of legal professional in 2007. When his well being was in decline, she drove him across the metropolis to do errands and to see his physician in a sequence of vehicles he purchased for her, in line with an interview with The Submit in 2018.
“He beloved me, and his entire household nonetheless calls me,” mentioned DeTommaso final week.
However Narine, an workplace employee, mentioned she recalled Nicky had allegedly tried to kick her out virtually as quickly as she moved in. “He wakened early, and each morning I might hear him curse at her to get the f–okay out,” she mentioned. “I’m subsequent door and the partitions are fairly skinny.”
The protracted battle with the Outars, immigrants from Guyana who additionally stay within the constructing, has taken its toll on the aged couple, claimed Narine, including that Sugrim Outar, 85, has had a number of coronary heart assaults over time.
“They’re each bodily weak,” mentioned Narine. “I’ve little question in my thoughts this battle with this skilled squatter has taken years off their lives.”
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