Stately $7M NYC Townhouse Used as a Brothel, Lawsuit Says

By: Serach Nissim

A stately Murray Hill townhouse on East 36th Street, which houses two apartments, is being used as a brothel, a lawsuit alleges. As reported by the NY Post, the legal documents say the five-bedroom apartment which was sublet has become a den for poker games, prostitution and loud late-night parties. The $6.9 million home, near Park Avenue, has neighbors complaining about loud music, pot smoke and crowding.

“It appears that they are using an apartment as a club. Loud music, marijuana smell, not following social distancing rules. Not wearing mask. Two men that act as bouncers standing outside. This happens on the weekend,” said a caller who complained to the Department of Buildings, back in December 2020. The NYPD counted 14 complaints to 311 about loud music for the address between November 2020 and March of 2021.

Shan Haider, who rents the other apartment in the townhouse said the loud partying sometimes begins as late as 4 a.m. “I complained so many times,” he said. He said in April 2021, some of the downstairs revelers broke into his apartment while he was out of town and that video captured a man who had already undressed walking in with a woman.

The lawsuit alleges that the problems all started in November 2020 when tenant Patricia Taub sublet the 3,000-square-foot $16,000-a-month triplex to Ashley Jurman. Since then revelers frequent the site at all hours of the night, creating a disturbance in the neighborhood.

The apartment is owned by Mitch Spaiser, who purchased it in 2012 as an investment. He says the complaints have been rolling in nonstop. He says he tried to evict Jurman who, in turn, demanded tens of thousands of dollars just to leave. Spaiser filed the lawsuit through his LLC in state Supreme Court in August. The defendants named in the case are Taub, Jurman and “John Does”. As per the Post, one of the John Does has been identified in subsequent legal papers as Kenyatti Adams, who moved in with Jurman in April 2021. “Adams is using the … premises to host illegal poker games, to host sex trafficking and prostitution activities, and to hold illegal afterhours parties,” court papers allege.

The notorious neighbors have also not been paying rent. They have claimed COVID-19 hardship and stopped making payments. “This is a case of the most egregious abuse of New York’s tenant protection laws being wrongfully used by bad actors to manipulate and take advantage of the system at the expense of the owners,” said Victor Feraru, a lawyer for Spaiser.