By Julie Shapiro
Lawyer Stephen Meister found himself under fire about his charged comments published in last week’s Downtown Express.
Meister represents Laurence Gluck, the owner of Independence Plaza North, a 1,339-unit housing complex in Tribeca. Meister and tenant lawyer Seth Miller are locked in a court dispute over whether I.P.N. should be rent-stabilized. In an article in the Feb. 5 Downtown Express, Meister forcefully stated that the tenants would be worse off if Miller won the case.
The quote that raised objections read: “If [Miller] wins and the building is stabilized, I’m going to make it my personal business to completely take the building to market. Everyone gets screwed if Miller wins.”
After Meister’s comments appeared, Miller wrote Meister an angry reply, calling Meister’s remarks “intemperate.” Miller said in the Feb. 5 letter that he was disturbed by Meister’s “unseemly personal animus towards my clients” and suggested it could be grounds for Meister being recused from the case. Miller said Meister’s attitude could imply that Gluck’s position is frivolous, and in any case Miller said Meister’s comments constitute harassment of tenants, which is illegal.
“This letter is intended as a warning about the potential consequences of making such threats in the press,” Miller wrote.
Meister sent Miller a response on Feb. 9, saying Miller should not have been surprised by the substance of Meister’s comments.
“While you complain about a tone I never intended, all my positions are well founded and well known to you, having been consistently and professionally advanced in our 4-year-old litigation,” Meister wrote. “Respectfully, Seth, I think it is your position which lacks merit and which needlessly exposes to risk tenants already fully protected.”
The crux of the argument between the two lawyers is an agreement the tenants signed with Gluck in 2004, when Gluck removed the complex from the state’s Mitchell-Lama affordability program. Back then, the tenants were happy with the agreement, which offered them some protections, including moderated rents.
But the tenants later found out that Gluck was receiving a J-51 tax break, which would have entitled them to additional protections under rent-stabilization. Miller is now fighting for the building to be rent-stabilized.
Meister, though, argues that the tenants already have a good deal, which they would lose if Miller won. Even if the building is declared rent-stabilized, Meister thinks those protections will not last past 2012, because of the terms of the tax break, which Gluck has cancelled. Miller disagrees and thinks that if the tenants won, they would be protected for as long as they stayed in their apartments.
In his letter, Meister also wrote that his quotes in Downtown Express “are not accurate,” though he added that the story accurately captured the substance of his positions and he defended those positions in the letter. Meister declined to say this week what specifically he thought was inaccurate.
Like Miller, State Sen. Daniel Squadron and Assemblymember Deborah Glick, who wrote a letter to the editor (P. 22), were also alarmed to read Meister’s comments in the Express last week.
“It is clearly unacceptable,” Squadron said.
Squadron called Gluck, hoping the I.P.N. owner would disavow Meister’s comments. Squadron said he has not heard back from Gluck.
Editor’s Note: Stephen Meister did not contact Downtown Express to let us know that he believed his quotes were inaccurate until our inquiry. On Feb. 9, five days after the article appeared online and four days after attorney Seth Miller sent Meister a letter objecting to the remarks, the Express contacted Meister for his response. In a brief phone interview that day, Meister did not dispute any of his quotes or give any indication that he objected to the article. Meister said that since the Express was planning to write a follow-up article on the tenants’ response to the comments, he would respond to Miller’s letter more quickly than he was planning to do. He then copied the Express on his letter to Miller.
Meister did not identify any quote that he felt was inaccurate, nor did he respond to our subsequent request for elaboration. We are pleased to know he believes we accurately captured the “substance” of his position.
