Appeal Could Keep Yeshiva Building Out Of Sex-Assault Victim’s Hands

Five years after winning a sexual assault case against the rabbi who ran his yeshiva, Eliyahu Mirlis faces yet another potential delay in gaining control of the building — and beginning to collect some of the $22 million owed him.

The latest possible delay came in the form of an appeal to a decision that would have resulted in the turning over of the building to Mirlis as partial payment for the crimes that took place.

Yet another round of legal arguments took place about that long-delayed foreclosure process Monday morning during a remote court hearing in the ongoing case Eliyahu Mirlis v. Yeshiva of New Haven Inc.

At issue during the hearing:

Has a nonprofit controlled by imprisoned Rabbi Daniel Greer filed its latest foreclosure appeal ​“only for delay”?

Or are there substantive matters of law at hand that should keep the convicted sex offender’s victim from taking ownership of the historic Edgewood yeshiva building for at least another year while the judicial challenge moves ahead?

State Superior Court Judge John Cirello heard the arguments from plaintiff’s attorney John Cesaroni and defendant’s attorney Jeffrey Sklarz in a case that dates back to July 2017.

Mirlis’s years-long bid to foreclose on and take possession of the yeshiva building at 765 Elm St. represents one of a handful of his legal efforts to collect on a largely unpaid $22 million sexual-abuse civil judgment that he won in 2017.

Greer, meanwhile, remains in prison, where he is serving a 20-year sentence for raping Mirlis while the latter was a student at that very same Edgewood Yeshiva. (Greer has appealed the criminal case.)

Victim's Attorney: "Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied"

At stake — and up for debate — in virtual court on Monday was whether or not Mirlis should be able to ​“terminate the stay” resulting from an appeal recently filed by the Yeshiva nonprofit. (The ​“stay” in this case refers to an automatic pause on transferring ownership that the court system imposes when a foreclosure judgment is appealed.)

That recent appeal, in turn, challenges Judge Cirello’s Feb. 18 decision rejecting the nonprofit’s request to reopen the foreclosure judgment and allow the nonprofit to substitute a $620,000 cash bond for the judgment lien.

Click here to read Mirlis’s April 7 motion to terminate stay, here to read the Yeshiva’s April 20 objection, and here and here for recent Independent articles about this case.

What this all means is explained in greater detail below.

But the upshot for Monday was: 

Should Mirlis be able to take ownership of the yeshiva property now? 

Or should he have to wait an indeterminate amount of time as Greer’s nonprofit’s appeal makes its way through the proper channels of the upper court?

“It could be well into 2023 or later that we even get a decision on that appeal,” Cesaroni said on Monday.

“What we’re asking the court to do is to terminate the stay because it’s been long enough in this case,” he continued. ​“The court has previously determined that the equities lie in the plaintiff’s favor.”

Cesaroni argued that the yeshiva nonprofit had plenty of time over the years of this foreclosure case to put together $620,000 in cash to try to hold onto ownership of the property. He said the nonprofit chose instead to delay and delay and delay until the last minute.

He also pointed to Connecticut Practice Book Sec. 61 – 11(d), which allows for a state court judge to terminate the stay in a foreclosure appeal ​“if the judge who tried the case is of the opinion that (1) an extension to appeal is sought, or the appeal is filed, only for delay or (2) the due administration of justice so requires.”

“Justice delayed is justice denied in a lot of cases,” Cesaroni said on Monday. ​“My client has been waiting for years for this judgment, and has been met with nothing other than delay tactics. At some point, that has to stop.”

But, Cirello said, what if he agrees to terminate the stay — and what if a foreclosure sale takes place, and there’s a successful bidder, and a bidder takes title to the property?

If all of that happens now, the judge asked, and then if the Appellate Court ​“comes down and says that I have to change my decision based on their findings, where does that leave us”?

“I’m concerned that putting the toothpaste back in the tube at that point is going to be a big concern,” he continued. ​“I don’t know exactly how the court would do that.”

Cesaroni replied that the strict foreclosure in this case is based on a judgment debt that is now north of $22 million. If the judge terminates the stay in this appeal, he said, the title to the property would pass to Mirlis — unless if the nonprofit and Greer ​“redeemed the entire debt” of $22 million.

If Cirello agrees to terminate the stay, Cesaroni continued, ​“I think the appeal would essentially be mooted out by the plaintiff taking title.”

Mirlis’s attorney recognized that that remedy ​“might not be able to be reversed.” But, he said, this is the Yeshiva nonprofit’s second appeal in several years in this case. And the court system’s rules clearly allow a trial judge like Cirello to terminate a stay if an appeal is filed solely for the purposes of delay. 

“At this point, I think, based on all the factors, it is time for the plaintiff to take title to this property and not have to wait plausibly another year, year and a half until this appeal concludes,” Cesaroni said.

Yeshiva Attorney: Not A "Delay Appeal"

Cirello then turned to Sklarz to make his case as to why the appeal-induced stay should not be terminated in this case.

Sklarz argued that this latest appeal is simply trying to enforce an order that a previous judge in this case, Claudia Baio, handed down that permitted the yeshiva nonprofit to set the value of the yeshiva property at $620,000 and that permitted the nonprofit to substitute a cash bond for the judgment lien.

Or, as Sklarz put it in his April 20 legal motion objecting to Mirlis’s motion to terminate the stay: ​“This appeal challenges several decisions of the Trial Court, including: (1) its refusal to re-open the judgment to allow Defendant to substitute a bond, (2) its requirement that Defendant have cash on hand before substitution would be permitted (despite evidence showing that such cash would be imminently available upon the Court’s approval of a substitution), and (3) its refusal to reach Defendant’s argument that it had a right to substitute as a matter of law, based on earlier rulings in the case by Judge Baio and the Appellate Court.”

“These are very substantive issues,” Sklarz contended on Monday. This is not simply a ​“delay appeal.”

Cirello asked Sklarz to tick through the grounds of the appeal one more time.

Sklarz said that the issues on appeal this time around are:

• Whether the trial court erred by not granting the renewed motion to reopen the foreclosure judgment and substitute a bond;

• Whether the trial court erred by requiring the Yeshiva to have sufficient cash on hand at the time of the hearing on the motion to continue the law day and substitute a bond;

• Whether the trial court erred by not considering the merits of the motion to substitute a bond and denying it because the Yeshiva didn’t have cash on hand;

• Whether the trial court erred in declining to reach a decision on the question of whether or not the defendant had a legal right to substitute a bond equal to the value of the property as previously determined by Baio;

• Whether the trial court erred in denying the motion for reconsideration and not granting arguments on that motion.

“That’s a lot of mistakes I made in one day,” Cirello replied drily. 

Skalrz laughed and said that it’s his client’s right to appeal.

“No need for comment,” Cirello said with a smile.

Before closing out the hearing for the day, Cirello promised to issue a written decision soon on Mirlis’s motion to terminate the stay. 

“The consequences are quite significant,” Cirello said.

“Attorney Cesaroni, you make a very compelling argument with regard to the age of the case, the basis of the appeal, the conduct of the defendant up until this point, and the Appellate Court’s review based on abuse of discretion, which is a very high hurdle for the defendant to leap.”

“At the same time,” Cirello continued, ​“Attorney Sklarz, there are some significant ramifications for my decision with regard to, if I terminate the stay, I’m basically jumping into the Appellate Court and making their decision for them, which is kind of above my paygrade in a sense.”

With that, Cirello promised to ​“take it on the papers,” and issue a written ruling soon.

(Recent) Legal Background

The two legal adversaries in this case last appeared in virtual state court in mid-February to argue over whether or not Cirello should reopen the standing strict foreclosure judgment for the purposes of extending the ​“law day” and allowing the Yeshiva nonprofit to substitute a $620,000 cash bond for the judgment lien. 

That is, Greer’s nonprofit wanted the court’s explicit permission to pay Mirlis $620,000 in cash in order to maintain control of the yeshiva property. That $620,000 valuation was set by Judge Baio back in 2020.

Cirello denied that motion, even as he pushed the law day — which is the last day that the owner of a foreclosed property can pay off outstanding debts and retain control of a property — back to March 28.

On March 10, the yeshiva’s attorney filed a motion to reargue Cirello’s decision refusing to reopen the foreclosure judgment. On March 25, Mirlis’s attorney filed his own opposition to that motion (which, with clear exasperation, began with the sentence: ​“As King Henry in Henry V famously said ​“once more unto the breach”.) And on April 2, Cirello denied the yeshiva’s motion to reargue.

And that was that.

Except, as ever in the Bleak House-ian legal world of Daniel Greer, it wasn’t.

Because on March 10 — and, through an amendment, on April 11 — the yeshiva nonprofit filed an appeal with the state Appellate Court.

That appeal challenged Cirello’s Feb. 18 rejection of the nonprofit’s motion to reopen the foreclosure judgement as well as his April 2 refusal to let the nonprofit reargue the that reopen motion.

Since this is only the second appeal filed in the nearly five-year-old foreclosure case, the state court system typically grants an ​“automatic stay” — which would bar Mirlis from taking ownership of the foreclosed property until the nonprofit’s legal challenge works its way through the appeal process. 

In turn, on April 7, Mirlis’s attorneys Matthew Beatman, James Moriarty, and Cesaroni filed a motion to scrap that stay — and to allow the ownership of the foreclosed yeshiva property to transfer to Mirlis, even as the nonprofit’s appeal moves forward.

And on April 20, the nonprofit’s attorney Sklarz filed a motion objecting to the motion to terminate stay.

All of which brought the case to Monday’s hearing, which was specifically about Mirlis’s motion to terminate stay and the yeshiva’s subsequent objection.