Judge: Housing $ Can’t Pay Rape-Case Lawyers

A federal judge has blocked convicted sex offender Daniel Greer’s housing nonprofits from diverting money from rental properties to pay over $308,000 to various lawyers — including controversial celebrity attorney Alan Dershowitz — who have helped Greer seek to leave prison and avoid paying a sex-assault victim.

That decision came down from federal Judge Charles Haight, Jr. in the ongoing case Eliyahu Mirlis v. Edgewood Corners Inc, Edgewood Elm Housing Inc, Edgewood Village Inc, F.O.H. Inc, and Yedidei Hagan Inc.

Haight’s decision doesn’t put an end to the so-called ​“reverse veil-piercing” case, which involves Mirlis’s accusation that five local housing nonprofits controlled by Greer have funneled the imprisoned landlord money and have helped him avoid paying a $21.7 million court-ordered judgment against him and a sixth local nonprofit, Yeshiva of New Haven Inc.

Friday’s ruling does, however, close the books on one of the boldest legal maneuvers yet in a series of interconnected state and federal cases involving Greer, the Yeshiva, Greer’s housing nonprofits, and Mirlis — a maneuver that affected New Haven government’s attempts to strengthen neighbors. 

That was a bid by Greer’s housing nonprofits last October to use money meant for supporting 50 Edgewood two- and three-family rental properties to instead pay off a half-dozen high-priced lawyers who have worked to help spring Greer from prison and keep the Yeshiva school building out of foreclosure.

All the while, Mirlis continues to try and collect on the largely unpaid $21.7 million-plus judgment, and Greer remains in prison serving a 20-year prison sentence for raping Mirlis while the latter was a student at his Edgewood Yeshiva. (Greer has appealed the criminal conviction.)

The legal mechanics of the motion that prompted Friday’s decision are, unsurprisingly, a bit difficult to follow for anyone who hasn’t spent the past few years burrowing through dozens of motions and hundreds of pages of filings across multiple state and federal cases. 

They involve Greer’s housing nonprofits’ request to modify a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) that Haight first put in place in August 2020, and that bars Greer’s companies from selling properties or using money for any purpose other than staff salaries and maintenance until the case is over. (See below for a detailed account of what exactly Haight’s ruling means in the context of this case.)

The outcome of Haight’s ruling on Friday, however, is clear: Greer’s housing companies aren’t allowed to pay legal bills stemming from Greer’s civil and criminal rape cases, and the Yeshiva’s foreclosure case. 

“What is presently apparent is that it would be inappropriate at this time to allow payments by these Defendants of considerable sums, without recourse, to attorneys who rendered services to non-Parties who have failed to pay Plaintiff’s Judgment against them,” Haight wrote.

Confronting the claim that one of Greer’s housing nonprofit’s bylaws require it to pay Greer’s rape-case attorneys, Haight continued, ​“Since the cases generating the attorneys’ fees at issue relate to Greer’s personal, reprehensible abuse of a child entrusted to his care, significant questions are presented as to whether Edgewood Elm is required to indemnify Greer.”

The judge also took on Greer’s housing nonprofits’ suggestions that money be transferred directly from the housing companies to the lawyers, and not to Greer the individual in between. ​“However, no matter how Defendants make the proposed payments, these payments will benefit non-Parties Greer and the Yeshiva to the detriment of Plaintiff’s ability to recover the underlying Judgment,” Haight wrote. ​“Because this is precisely what the TRO is meant to prevent, Defendants’ first requested modification to the TRO will not be allowed.”

Also included in Haight’s Friday ruling is a ​“clarification” granting Greer’s housing companies permission to sell off rental properties to raise $620,000 that would be paid directly to Mirlis in exchange for keeping the Yeshiva building at 765 Elm St. out of foreclosure. State Superior Court Judge John Cirello heard arguments in that separate foreclosure case Monday morning. In a three-page ruling, Cirello reset the so-called ​“law date” for the Yeshiva building from Jan. 31 to Feb. 22. That means that Greer’s Yeshiva nonprofit has roughly a month to raise $620,000 to pay Mirlis and retain control of the Yeshiva building.

Click here to read Haight’s 25-page decision from Friday, and here to read Cirello’s decision from Monday.

$308,041.37 In Legal Debts, Revealed

Haight’s Friday decision reveals how much Greer and the yeshiva owe to various attorneys who have worked over the years on defending Greer, appealing his criminal conviction, seeking to overturn his civil judgment, and trying to keep the Yeshiva out of foreclosure.

Those details are included in a newly-unsealed set of legal-fee affidavits filed by Greer’s various lawyers in mid-November in the federal reverse veil-piercing case. Greer’s nonprofits had sought to hide those legal fees on the grounds that, if they were to be made public, they’d be reported on by ​“certain news outlets showing a clear bias” against Greer.

According to the affidavits, which can be read in full here, Greer and the Yeshiva owe:

• $185,136 to various Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey LLP lawyers, and in particular to attorney David Grudberg. Grudberg wrote in his Nov. 18 affidavit that those fees stem from his work representing Greer and the Yeshiva since February 2017 in both the civil and criminal cases filed by Mirlis. ​“My firm has unpaid invoices for ongoing representation dating back approximately one year,” Grudberg wrote. ​“I have been the lawyer principally responsible for the vast majority of the work done on behalf of Mr. Greer and the Yeshiva, and have been assisted periodically by my partner, Amanda C. Nugent, Esq., and occasionally by associates.” Grudberg said that his ​“substantially reduced billing rate” in his representation of Greer and the Yeshiva has been $360 per hour.

• $59,088 to attorney Richard Emanuel. Emanuel wrote in his Nov. 17 affidavit that he was hired to represent Greer in December 2019 to appeal his criminal conviction. That appeal is still pending before the Connecticut Appellate Court. At Greer’s request, Emanuel has also agreed to represent him in a filing to the United States Supreme Court of an application for bail pending appeal of Greer’s convictions. In total, Emanuel wrote, Greer still owes him $31,500 in legal fees from the criminal appeal, $7,788 for various expenses that Emanuel paid out of pocket, and $19,800 in legal fees for the application to the Supreme Court.

• $26,630.87 to attorney Jeffrey Sklarz and various attorneys at his law firm Green & Sklarz LLC. Sklarz currently represents Yeshiva of New Haven Inc. in a state court case in which Mirlis is trying to foreclose on the Edgewood school building. In addition to the $26,000+ currently owed, Sklarz wrote, he also anticipates that his firm will incur between $5,000 to $20,000 in additional fees related to further litigation and potential appeals in that foreclosure case.

• $20,000 to Alan Dershowitz. Dershowitz did not file his own legal-fee affidavit in this case. Rather, his debts are detailed in the affidavit written by Day Pitney attorney Richard Colbert. In regards to the money owed to Dershowitz, Colbert wrote: ​“I also had the opportunity to review a letter from Attorney Alan Dershowitz concerning Mr. Dershowitz’ legal consultation with Rabbi Daniel Greer’s primary legal team representing him in his criminal action. According to the letter, Mr. Dershowitz agreed to reduce the legal fees owed to him by 50% to $25,000 for his work on the criminal matter, despite his usual hourly rate being $1,950 and Rabbi Greer accumulating fees of approximately $50,000. I have also reviewed records indicating that Mr. Dershowitz has to date been paid $5,000 of this amount, leaving a balance of $20,000.”

• $17,186.50 to various Day Pitney lawyers, in particular to attorneys Richard Colbert and Michael Schoeneberger. Colbert wrote in his Nov. 18 affidavit that he represents Sarah Greer and the Yeshiva of New Haven Inc. in separate federal cases filed by Mirlis. He said that he and Schoeneberger worked on a ​“cert. petition” in the Yeshiva foreclosure case, and their work on that matter resulted in the $17,100+ owed. Colbert added that former Connecticut Supreme Court Chief Justice and current Day Pitney partner Chase T. Rogers also spent 1.1 hours ​“at a reduced hourly billing rate of $755” reviewing and consulting on the cert. petition.

Haight’s motion does not shed any light on how these lawyers will be paid, especially now that Greer’s housing nonprofits are barred from using company money to close out those legal debts — at least so long as the reverse veiling-piercing case remains in federal court.

Case Context

Now, for the close watchers of this case:

Mirlis first filed this reverse veil-piercing case in 2019 in an attempt to collect on the unpaid $22 million civil judgment from 2017. While that civil judgment was against Greer the individual and the yeshiva nonprofit, the reverse veil-piercing case went after the five other Edgewood housing nonprofits that are also controlled by Greer, in an attempt to get Greer’s housing companies to pay up when Greer the individual wouldn’t or couldn’t.

Haight’s decision on Friday came in response to an October 2021 motion filed by Greer’s housing nonprofits in the ongoing case.

That October 2021 motion sought to modify the TRO that Haight first put in place in August 2020. 

The original TRO, in turn, barred Greer’s five housing nonprofits from “(a) transferring or encumbering any of their personal property, other than to pay any of their employees, with the exception of [Greer], and perform reasonable maintenance on real property they own; or (b) transferring or encumbering any of their real property …” as the case continues.

In the October 2021 motion, Greer’s housing nonprofits sought to get Haight to amend that TRO to allow the companies to pay off Greer’s and the Yeshiva’s legal bills stemming from the separate civil and criminal cases. 

The housing nonprofits filed that motion to modify soon after the state stopped those same companies from participating in an annual state tax credit program that Greer’s companies have tapped into for decades to, ostensibly, subsidize repairs and operations of the Edgewood rental properties and the Yeshiva. That decision by the state came soon after New Haven city government signed off on sending upwards of $900,000 in state tax credits to Greer’s companies through the program.

Mirlis and his attorney opposed the attempted TRO modification by arguing that this was yet another bid by Greer to redirect money that should be going towards his sex-assault victim towards lawyers bent on prolonging all of these legal cases and ensuring that Mirlis not get paid. Mirlis has also argued that Greer’s housing nonprofits are deliberately running their 50 rental properties into the ground through shoddy maintenance and upkeep so as to diminish their value before, and if, they ultimately end up in the hands of Mirlis. 

Now that Haight has refused to modify the TRO, the reverse veil-piercing case continues. 

Namely, Haight still has to rule on a motion for summary judgment filed by Greer’s housing nonprofits, in a bid to throw the case out entirely before it proceeds any further into phases involving the gathering of evidence.