Greer Nonprofits Seek To Hide Legal Fees

How much are imprisoned Rabbi Daniel Greer’s housing nonprofits seeking to pay Alan Dershowitz and other lawyers?

Those companies are asking a federal judge not to let the public find out.

A debate over whether that information should be public has emerged in a series of recent filings in the federal court case Eliyahu Mirlis v. Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, and Yedidei Hagan Inc.

At the center of the dispute is the public’s access to the courts.

Greer’s companies argue that the public and the press should not be able to view documents that detail how these nonprofits want to pay legal bills stemming from Greer’s ongoing quest to leave prison, avoid paying a sex-assault victim, and buy the Edgewood Yeshiva out of foreclosure. Those documents should be closed to the court because a ​“biased” news outlet might report on them, they state. (New Haven city government and the state have signed off on millions of dollars in tax credits for those housing nonprofits until a Republican state official put an end to the process this year.)

Mirlis, meanwhile, argues that the documents should not be kept out of public view — because sealing an otherwise-public document simply because one side has accused the press of prejudice would be a clear violation of the public’s First Amendment right to view into the judicial branch of government.

“Certain News Outlets Showing A Clear Bias”

The federal court ​“reverse veil piercing” case involves Mirlis’s accusing five local housing nonprofits controlled by Greer of funneling the imprisoned landlord money and helping him avoid paying a $21.7 million court-ordered judgment against him and a sixth local nonprofit, Yeshiva of New Haven Inc.

In late October, the Independent reported on how Greer’s companies’ lawyers have asked the federal court to modify a temporary restraining order (TRO) to allow the housing nonprofits to pay off some of the legal debts that Greer has incurred while, among other legal actions, trying to overturn his 20-year prison sentence for raping Mirlis while the latter was a student at his Edgewood Yeshiva. (Greer has appealed the criminal conviction.)

Mirlis and his attorney have urged the court not to grant the request, arguing that it would allow the imprisoned landlord to ​“loot” his companies’ coffers and run his properties into the ground while continuing to dodge paying Mirlis his still-unpaid civil judgment.

On Oct. 18, federal Judge Charles Haight, Jr. ordered Greer’s companies’ attorneys to provide a detailed accounting of how much they are seeking to pay a half-dozen different attorneys — including David Grudberg, Richard Emanuel, and Alan Dershowitz — in order to relieve Greer and the Yeshiva of their relevant legal debts.

Which brings the matter to the most recent set of filings — and the fight between Greer’s companies and Mirlis over public access to the courts.

On Nov. 19, Greer’s companies’ local attorney, Richard Colbert of the firm Day Pitney, filed a ​“reply memorandum in support of motion to modify temporary restraining order.” Click here to read that document in full.

In that 16-page document, Colbert dismisses Mirlis’s ​“looting” concerns as ​“histrionic” and argues that Edgewood Elm Housing must be allowed to pay some of Greer’s and the Yeshiva’s legal bills.

That’s because ​“Greer is entitled to indemnification under the broad terms of Edgewood Elm Housing’s By-Laws because such alleged sexual abuse ​‘arose out of’ or ​‘related to’ his activities as an officer and employee of Edgewood Elm Housing.”

The exact amount and nature of those legal fees, however, should be kept out of public view, Colbert attended on the final page of the filing.

Why?

“Based on the sensitive financial nature of such matters and the certainty that certain members of the press will use such affidavits to prejudice Defendants’ rights and positions in this matter, Defendants have moved pursuant to D. Conn. L. Civ. R. 5(e)4 to file the affidavits under seal.”

That section of the United States District Court District of Connecticut Local Rules of Civil Procedure details the procedure by which an attorney can file a document with the court ​“under seal” — that is, visible to the court but not to the public.

That section of the rules does not specify exactly which types of documents can be sealed and which must remain open.

Rather, a few paragraphs earlier in that same section, the rules state, ​“The power to close a courtroom or to exclude the public from proceedings to which a First Amendment right to access attaches shall be used sparingly and only for clear and compelling reasons. Before excluding the public from such proceedings, the Court must make particularized findings on the record demonstrating the need for the exclusion, and any court closure order shall be narrowly tailored to serve the purpose of the closure.”

In a separate legal filing dated Nov. 19, Colbert again makes his case as to why the legal fees affidavits should remain closed to public view. Click here to read that document in full.

“Because the legal fees and expenses are sensitive financial matters, and because the affidavits will surely be reported on by certain news outlets showing a clear bias against Greer and the Yeshiva,” Colbert writes, ​“Defendants submit that it is fair and just that such affidavits be sealed to protect Greer and the Yeshiva’s respective interests and not encourage unreasonable publicity regarding the legal fees. The public has no compelling interest in knowing what Rabbi Greer or the Yeshiva have partially spent on legal fees defending themselves.”

“Public Access To The Courts”

On Nov. 19, Mirlis’s attorneys — James Moriarty, Matthew Beatman, and John Cesaroni of the firm Zeisler & Zeisler — called on the court to reject Colbert’s request to shroud the legal fees in secrecy. Click here to read that document in full.

Their argument hinges on protecting the public’s, and the press’s, First Amendment right to access the courts.

They begin their opposition to the motion to seal by quoting the local rules of civil procedures’ dictates on just how ​“sparingly” court documents should be sealed.

“Defendants have not made the requisite showing to file the Legal Fees Affidavit under seal and preclude the public’s First Amendment right to access,” they write.

Indeed, Greer’s companies do not even argue that the legal fees affidavits contain ​“personal identifying information that is generally subject to protection,” such as social security numbers or bank account numbers.

“Instead, Defendants ask the Court to seal the Legal Fees Affidavit for the very reason that a court should never seal a document: to prevent the press from accessing the document because the press may be biased against a party, in this case D. Greer. …

“Indeed, if keeping a document like the Legal Fees Affidavit from the press because it might be biased against a party was a legitimate basis to file under seal nearly every document filed in any case with even a modicum of media attention would be subject to being filed under seal and the public would no longer have access to the courts.”

Furthermore, Mirlis’s attorneys argue, Greer’s companies are nonprofits that ​“solicit donations from the public, in the past twenty years have received millions of dollars through Connecticut’s Neighborhood Assistance Tax Credit Program, and likely receive, or have received, funds through other public or quasi-public sources. The public absolutely has a right and a need to know how the Defendants are spending their funds, including the amounts that Defendants are spending, or being asked to spend, to continue to defend D. Greer and the Yeshiva.”

“Bias News Entity”

On Tuesday, Colbert shot back at Mirlis’s attorneys for a ​“remarkably impetuous filing” opposing Greer’s companies’ bid to keep the legal affidavits under wraps. Click here to read that document in full.

Greer’s companies’ attorney argued that Mirlis is not actually interested in the First Amendment, the freedom of the press, or the public access to the courts.

“Plaintiff’s purported concern about the Court’s openness is actually driven by his self-serving desire to continue helping the bias news entity that he improperly attached three (3) separate articles from to his Memorandum in Opposition to Defendants’ Motion to Modify Temporary Restraining Order (ECF No. 71). Indeed, a simple reading of those bias articles makes clear that the author has already adjudicated the veil piercing claims in this case and is vastly publishing his judgment, despite having no evidence or trial on the matter.”

(The three articles referenced by Colbert were all published by the New Haven Independent. Mirlis’s attorneys included PDF printouts as exhibits to an Oct. 15 court filing in the case. Those articles — two of which were written by this reporter, one by former Independent staff reporter Christopher Peak — can be read here, here and here.)

“Simply stated,” Colbert concludes, ​“what a person or a party spends on legal fees is indeed protectable, sensitive financial information and not of sufficient interest to the general public to allow the wholesale dissemination of such information. This is especially true where the publication of such information will be done (and is shamelessly requested by Plaintiff here) for the clear purpose of prejudicing the Defendants in the public and consequently in this action.”