Public advocate candidate Jenifer Rajkumar blasted out social media marketing campaign advertisements final week that say she as soon as “fought a mega landlord and won a $100M lawsuit for freezing families.”
The category motion lawsuit in query was filed in 2014 by tenants at Gateway Plaza, a Manhattan housing complicated, who alleged their landlord was accountable for “uninhabitable conditions” of their residences.
Rajkumar, at present a State Meeting member representing Queens, was one in every of three legal professionals who filed the unique Manhattan Supreme Court docket grievance on behalf of the tenants on April 1, 2014. Rajkumar was on the time a solo practitioner lawyer working in an “of counsel” capability for Sanford Heisler, a Manhattan agency the place the 2 different legal professionals listed on the grievance labored.
Two days after the swimsuit was submitted, although, Lucas Ferrara, a associate at Newman Ferrara LLP, filed a movement demanding Rajkumar and Sanford Heisler be disqualified from the case as a result of he alleged Rajkumar had engaged in “gross plagiarism.”
In keeping with Ferrara’s movement, Rajkumar had a couple of month earlier spoken together with his workplace about changing into a plaintiff within the pending case towards the house owners of Gateway Plaza, the place she lived on the time. As a part of these conversations, Ferrara alleged his agency shared a draft of the lawsuit with Rajkumar for evaluate.
Three days later, Rajkumar informed Ferrara’s agency she had modified her thoughts.
As a substitute of being a plaintiff, she “wanted to serve as co-counsel” on the case, the movement says. Ferrara wrote that his agency knowledgeable Rajkumar that might be ethically problematic, given her direct curiosity as a Gateway Plaza tenant.
“Ms. Rajkumar changed her mind about acting as named plaintiff and opted instead to misappropriate and plagiarize the draft complaint she was provided to review — without the knowledge or consent of Newman Ferrara,” Ferrara wrote, including that neither Rajkumar nor Sanford Heisler had “in any way” been concerned within the investigation that shaped the premise for the swimsuit.
Sanford Heisler had been concerned in representing a Gateway Plaza tenant who didn’t find yourself being a named plaintiff.
In the end, Ferrara’s group withdrew the movement for disqualification after his agency and Sanford Heisler reached an settlement on April 22, 2014 whereby Sanford Heisler stayed on the case as “co-counsel,” whereas Ferrara’s agency and Morgan & Morgan, a 3rd agency concerned, could be “co-lead counsel,” a replica of the settlement filed in court docket reveals.
The settlement didn’t point out Rajkumar, who has denied any wrongdoing in reference to the plagiarism accusations. After the settlement, Rajkumar, who labored as an affiliate at Sanford Heisler till 2009, didn’t personally submit any further filings within the case, which was settled in 2020 for $10 million, data present.
Rajkumar defended her marketing campaign’s social media advertisements this week, saying she continued to work on the case in an “of counsel” capability after the plagiarism spat.
Her spokesman Arvind Sooknanan characterised her work after that time as being targeted on “pressuring the mega landlord to improve the conditions of the buildings” and collaborating “with co-counsel at the other law firms.”
Her advertisements concerning the Gateway case have been posted on X, Instagram and Fb.
The Rajkumar advertisements additionally accuse incumbent Public Advocate Jumaane Williams of being “the worst landlord in NYC,” a reference to a report {that a} constructing he owns lately went into foreclosures.
In operating for public advocate within the June 24 Democratic main, Rajkumar, an in depth ally to Mayor Adams, has accused Williams of being too lazy for the job. These criticism have echoed feedback from Adams, who has claimed Williams doesn’t get up till midday.
To this point, Rajkumar has raised extra money than Williams, sitting on about $1.4 million in comparison with his roughly $1 million, filings present, as the first looms only a month away.
Initially Printed: Could 23, 2025 at 3:56 PM EDT
