A NYC landlord has been ordered to pay a fine of $17,000 in damages to a tenant for making threats that were considered discriminatory. The case, the first of its kind related to housing revolves around a landlord threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) because the tenant was allegedly not making rental payments. The court found that the behavior was in violation of law as the landlord harassed or intimidated the tenant.
The judge ruled that the landlord Dianna Lysius harassed tenant Holly Ondaan by repeatedly threatening to call ICE on her over unpaid rent. According to Daily Kos‘s report on the matter “Ondaan lived in the apartment from September 2011 to September 2018. In the fall of 2017, Ondaan made her first complaints to police that Lysius was sending threatening texts and making visits. By October of the same year, Ondaan had stopped paying rent, citing financial difficulties, and says that Lysius amped up the texts in response. Lysius began a nonpayment action against Ondaan over the late rent. Eventually, Lysius lost the mortgage to the house and cited Ondaan’s nonpayment as the reason.” The judge also recognized that Lysius’s “dire financial circumstances” likely played a part in the text messages but noted the threats were still discriminatory. Some of the texts sent to the tenant by Lysius were “HAVE MY MONEY OR IM CALLING ICES [sic] THAT DAY PERIOD”; “It was fun and games when you calling DOB now it’s fun and games calling immigration 12 times day. They can deport you”; and “I REPORTED YOU TO IMMIGRATION BOO THEY KNOW IM THE LANDLORD TO PROVIDE THEM KEYS COME DIRECTLY TO YOU.”
Ondaan was an undocumented immigrant at the time the case was filed. She says that she has since gotten her green card according to the Commission of Human Rights which represented Ondaan in the case. Sapna V. Ray deputy commissioner of NYC Human Rights Commission states that “It sets important case precedent for the interpretation of our Human Rights Law to include the weaponization of ICE to intimidate or harass someone in housing as a violation. “We will not allow our city’s most vulnerable to be further marginalized out of fear for their safety in their own homes. Immigration status, citizenship, and national origin (perceived or actual) are protected categories under our law, and we will continue to fight to ensure those protections are enforced to the fullest extent.”
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