A Florida lady took over a co-op constructing in fashionable Williamsburg, illegally pocketed hire and even tried to promote the constructing for $1.4 million, a brand new lawsuit claims.
However phony landlord Jessica Vargas claims she did nothing improper as a result of a metropolis official instructed her possession of the squatter-infested constructing was “good to go” earlier than she allegedly collected practically $450,000 from the low-income co-op.
“A thief?” Vargas instructed The Publish. “That’s not who I’m — I’ve all the time been trustworthy.”
Vargas was named in a lawsuit this week filed by state Lawyer Basic Letitia James, searching for to take the constructing’s title again, and pushing Vargas to pay the co-op again.
Vargas, the swimsuit contends, created a number of false paperwork to assert possession of 13 Scholes St., a three-family limited-equity co-op constructing referred to as an HDFC, turning the supposedly reasonably priced constructing into “a Floridian’s private piggy financial institution,” James stated in an announcement this week.
“Jessica Vargas declared herself president of a constructing she had no declare to, exploiting New Yorkers for her private acquire whereas residing over a thousand miles away,” James stated.
However Vargas stated that she solely inherited a state of affairs her late father created — and that after he died in 2018 a since-retired metropolis official instructed her all the things was kosher.
Her lawyer, Alexander Levkovich, stated Vargas is harmless, and referred to as the swimsuit “a major overreach.”
The swimsuit states that Vargas, 41, who grew up within the constructing together with her household and now lives in a Tampa suburb the place she works as an information specialist, “has engaged in repeated fraudulent acts” and should return $442,000 in hire that ought to have gone to the co-op. The constructing owes over $40,000 in metropolis property taxes.
Vargas stated the cash she netted — $6,500 in month-to-month hire paid by a developer-owned LLC her father signed an settlement with earlier than he died — was used to assist her siblings and authorized charges for the constructing, to not make her wealthy.
“I’ve been residing in the identical home for over 20 years,” Vargas stated. “I’ve no fancy vehicles. I’ve nothing — nothing. They are saying: ‘Wow, yeah, she got here into some huge cash.’ No, I’m simply doing what I’ve all the time been doing since I used to be 5-years previous: caring for my siblings.”
Her father, Albert Rivera, first claimed possession of the co-op’s shares in a doc containing solely his and his spouse’s signatures, which the lawsuit stated is fraudulent because it lacked signatures from the opposite shareholders.
Vargas stated that when the opposite shareholders died, their shares transferred again into the HDFC and her father, an concept that James’ workplace stated flies within the face of primary property regulation.
Courtroom paperwork embrace an affirmation from a shareholder’s property claiming their shares have been by no means transferred to Rivera.
Rivera signed a 2017 lease settlement with an LLC held by builders, giving them reign over the constructing and an possibility to purchase for $1.4 million, so long as they paid a hire of $6,500 a month.
However James’ workplace stated that lease settlement was void, since any tenant must meet strict earnings standards with shareholder approval. Even when the lease have been legit, that cash was meant for the co-op, not Rivera’s or Vargas’ pockets, the workplace contends.
When Rivera died, Vargas, as administrator of her father’s property, continued to gather the cash and offered herself because the constructing’s sole proprietor via a number of alleged false paperwork filed with metropolis companies — together with a fraudulent inventory certificates claiming sole possession, in accordance with James’ filings.
Vargas instructed The Publish that following her father’s loss of life, she met with an HPD official, whom her father allegedly met with years in the past and had permitted the lease.
She confirmed him “all the things that I had” associated to the constructing, and that the official “stated I used to be good to go…He instructed me to place down that I’m the proprietor,” Vargas stated.
An electronic mail from her father in December 2016 states that he met with the official and famous that “HPD can’t give something in writing” with regard to his possession declare.
The Publish was unable to succeed in the official — whose identify is being withheld — to confirm any of Vargas’ claims.
HPD confirmed that the official not works on the division and that they don’t have any data of any conferences with Vargas or Rivera.
The spokesperson added that the LLC lease wouldn’t be permissible attributable to HDFC restrictions, and that the HDFC was by no means dissolved.
Vargas’ dealings have left the co-op in debt — together with $41,479 in unpaid property taxes and a $3,000 water invoice — as she collected at the least $442,000 in unreported earnings from the constructing, the swimsuit alleges.
When the AG’s workplace first opened its investigation over a yr in the past — spurred by questions of possession raised throughout a swimsuit to take away alleged squatters who took over the long-vacant constructing in 2023 — they requested Vargas to supply paperwork exhibiting her possession and the dissolution of the HDFC.
Vargas instructed The Publish she had cooperated absolutely, however officers stated Vargas failed to supply any proof that her declare was legit.
Then the AG’s workplace supplied a deal: if Vargas dropped her claims to the title, prosecutors wouldn’t go after the allegedly stolen funds.
Vargas rejected the provide.
“The good thing about Jessica getting into into this settlement would have been strictly for the AG to just about take over the property,” stated Levkovich, Vargas’ lawyer.
Vargas stated she’s been “nothing however trustworthy,” and that if HPD instructed her there was a deficiency within the title, she would have adopted no matter they instructed her to do on the time.
An AG spokesperson stated the lengths Vargas went to prop up her false story of possession, together with an allegedly false inventory certificates, contradict her claims of not figuring out higher.
Levkovich stated they’ll have to start out a gofundme to pay for the “important sources to defend the swimsuit.”
“I can’t sleep,” Vargas stated. “Being accused of stealing one thing? That’s not me — I’ve all the time been trustworthy.”
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