Maddox Faces Wrongful Eviction
Alton Maddox will be in Manhattan Supreme Court, 60 Centre Street, Pt. 48, Rm 412 in Manhattan on Tuesday, July 7 at 10:00 am to restrain Manhattan Housing Court Judge Jean Schneider from wrongfully evicting Alton & Leola Maddox from their residence of thirty-four years. Justice Marilyn G. Diamond signed the order to show cause on Monday, June 29.
This is an Article 78 proceeding in the nature of a writ of prohibition. This means that a judicial officer is about to proceed in an action or proceeding without or in excess of jurisdiction. In other words, only a person who is actually a landlord to the tenant can initiate a dispossess proceeding.
The trial of this dispossess proceeding started on May 1, 2009. It was discovered that the landlord had actually transferred its interest to the property on April 7, 2000. Afterwards, the landlord continued to demand and collect rent. This constitutes a scheme to defraud under New York Penal Law §190.60.
After it was discovered that PWV Acquisition LLC was not the landlord, the following is Judge Schneider’s reaction to the landlord’s conduct:
“I don’t see how you mark a case ready for trial when you know that petitioner doesn’t have an interest in the premises. I am stunned.”

This means that you must own property before you can sue someone else for rent. This landlord-tenant relationship must exist at the outset of the litigation and not later.

Judge Schneider would add this comment:
The only reason I have not already dismissed your case is because it has been pending for four years and there is a lot of water that has flowed under the bridge during those four years. That is the only reason I haven’t already dismissed it.
This comment is illegal. A housing court judge must strictly follow the letter of the law in a dispossess proceeding. A judge has no discretion to give a landlord a second chance. A disposes proceeding is an abbreviated civil action. It allows the landlord to move quickly but in return the landlord must act within a strait-jacket.
When a landlord fails to prove the existence of a deed, the housing court judge must dismiss the dispossess proceeding no questions asked. This happened on October 25, 2002 in Manhattan Housing Court. This same “landlord” was unable to produce the deed. That housing court judge immediately dismissed the dispossess proceeding in 2002.
A landlord-tenant relationship must exist before the landlord makes a demand for rent. No exceptions. The demand for rent by the actual landlord is a condition precedent to the initiation of a dispossess proceeding.
Maddox is asking everyone to call Administrative Judge Fern Fisher on Monday at 646-386-4200 to allow for a bigger courtroom instead of Room No. 412 in Manhattan Supreme Court on Tuesday, July 7 to hear oral arguments in Maddox v. Schneider et. al., Index No. 109190 (Sup. Ct., N.Y. Co. 2009).

The office of New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will be defending Judge Schneider. This should be a conflict-of-interest since Andrew Cuomo and his father, former Gov. Mario Cuomo, among others, engineered my disbarment. This dispossess could be the”Big Payback”.