If you’ve been waiting impatiently for the outcome of the eviction case involving fashion model Aubrey Hill, now you know how the landlord feels.
The case, which I wrote about in early June, dates back to October 2023. The model, who abandoned her rent-stabilized Washington Heights apartment, reneged on her $25,000 rent-arrears deal early last year.
But her unauthorized subletter, Tasheem Jenkins, has been able to fend off eviction and stay in the $1,675-a-month unit ever since — without paying a dime.
He has been able to do this with no lease, no funding, no lawyer and no apparent legal training, frustrating the collective efforts of the landlord, the property manager and their experienced landlord-tenant attorneys.
Even after an eviction was ordered by housing court months ago and scheduled by a city marshal, Jenkins kept possession of Apartment D at 367 Wadsworth Avenue.
From these facts, you might conclude that the 31-year-old Jenkins is pretty savvy — perhaps even a savant — at manipulating the legal system.
If so, you will be surprised to learn that a judge delayed the case again last week when a city lawyer argued that Jacobs was “unable to adequately defend his rights.”
Two years of fending off professionals while living rent-free ain’t bad for a person who can’t defend himself. Perhaps if Jenkins were more competent or had a lawyer, he would have been upgraded to a free penthouse already.
A week after the June 4 hearing, Paul Cicero Hurst, a lawyer for the city’s Department of Social Services, wrote to the court that Jenkins was helpless in court, facing homelessness and should have a guardian ad litem appointed before any decision is made about executing his eviction order. Hurst identified his agency as “a friend” of Jenkins’.
As a result, the judge (a former tenants’ attorney and advocate, who co-founded Communities Resist) postponed eviction for the umpteenth time, appointed a guardian for Jenkins and set yet another date (June 25) for the landlord to return to court with an argument for why the eviction shouldn’t be vacated — which would set the landlord all the way back to square one.
This is the 12th order to show cause since the saga began. On many of them, judges sided with the landlord because Jenkins was not a legal tenant and never demonstrated an ability to pay the rent. Yet still he remained.
The latest judge also noted that a psychiatric evaluation of Jenkins by Dr. Candice Hacker had been submitted along with the application.
It’s not clear how Jenkins got the psychiatric report, buying himself another month and probably more, but it fits his modus operandi. Last year, he dragged out the case by saying he’d had knee surgery. A bad knee doesn’t entitle you to free rent or a lease, nor does it prevent you from attending court virtually.
But it got him entree with Adult Protective Services, which, after a few months, decided Jenkins was fine and could manage on his own. Yet now the city has referred him back to APS — an office that is increasingly overwhelmed as more tenants discover they can use it to delay eviction.
There is a public benefit, of course, for keeping Jenkins in the apartment, if otherwise he would be living in a homeless shelter or the subway system. Even so, there’s no rationale for forcing the landlord — who never agreed to let Jenkins sublet from the fashion model — to house him.
Jenkins does not qualify for a one-shot to pay his rent because he was never on the lease, which expired 16 months ago. And in the unlikely event that APS finds $60,000 to pay the back rent, the landlord is not going to take it anyway because that might establish Jenkins as a tenant, which is the last thing the landlord wants.
Meanwhile, by clinging to the apartment, Jenkins is potentially making things worse for the person who took him in: Hill, the first high-fashion model from West Virginia.
She remains the tenant of record, so despite vacating the unit, the unpaid rent keeps getting added to her tab until her subletter leaves. In theory, the landlord could win a judgment against her for the entire sum.
No one likes to carry around that kind of extra weight. Especially fashion models.
Read more
The Daily Dirt: City Council takes aim at squatters
4 years, $60k in arrears: A portrait of housing court delays at their worst
LeFrak, citing “nightmarish” delays, takes housing court to court
