Real Estate Owner Who Owes Former Tenant Her $1,800 Security Deposit Ceased Contact With Her

GREENPOINT, BROOKLYN — Gabriela Gonzalez, who goes by GG, has almost completely given up hope that she'll see the $1,800 security deposit her old landlord, Sylvester Smolarczyk, said he would give her in October.

The 26-year-old and her boyfriend moved out of their Greenpoint apartment on Meeker Avenue on Oct. 1 after their lease was up. Gonzalez then entered into a number of email threads with Smolarczyk's lawyer and Smolarczyk himself to get her deposit back. On Oct. 19, Smolarczyk wrote an email response to Gonzalez that said he would give her back her deposit, Gonzalez told Patch. But soon after that email, Smolarczyk ceased all contact with Gonzalez, and more than two months later, she still hasn't received a penny of the $1,800, she said.

"In my last voicemail to him, I said, 'It's only $1,800, it should be nothing to you, but it means a lot to, you know, the normal person," Gonzalez said.

Gonzalez had lived in the apartment for a year and a half, and everything was normal, until January 2016, when someone slipped a bulky packet under Gonzalez's door, she said. It was a court document saying her building and a handful of neighboring buildings, also owned by Smolarczyk, had gone into foreclosure. It turns out Smolarczyk, under his company SMK Properties, owed $14 million in debt to his mortgage lenders, Madison Capital Realty.

The document said that from then on, Gonzalez would have to pay her rent checks to a man named Harry Horowitz, who would be the receiver for her building. A receiver is a court-appointed person who replaces the management of a building when a loan on the building is in default.

Gonzalez paid her rent checks to Horowitz every month until she moved out Oct. 1.

When she moved out in Oct. 2015, and it came time to get her security deposit back, Gonzalez said she requested it from Horowitz, who responded that he didn't have the money.

Horowitz referred Gonzalez to Smolarczyk's former lawyer, Tom Fazio, who he believed to be his current lawyer. Gonzalez went back and forth with Fazio, who then put her in touch with Smolarczyk.

Gonzalez wrote Smolarczyk an email on Oct. 10 requesting to expedite the process of returning her deposit. Smolarczyk responded to her in an email two days later:

Hi GG,
I am responding to your email and the chain of emails with reference to your security deposit.
As you are aware, we have been under the scrutiny of a court ordered receiver that has forcefully wrapped his hands around every aspect of the properties. Additionally, the law office of Blodnick & Fazio (Toms office) are no longer our attorneys so please remove them from being BCC on any further communications between us directly. At the moment we have no access to the unit that you vacated nor do we have an open line of communication with the receiver. We are in the process of refinancing all of our properties to regain full control which is anticipated to close in the next 2 weeks. I will discuss your situation and release of deposit with my father and advise you of how we can put this to rest within the next business day. I truly apologize for all of the hassles and issues you've had to deal with and I will do my best to mitigate this as quickly as I can.
Thanks for your patience and understanding, all my best.

Two days after that, Gonzalez followed up. On Oct. 19, Smolarczyk wrote her another email:

Hi GG,
We are getting access to the unit today, will inspect and can send you a check immediately thereafter. Kindly provide me with the following; Name (who the check should be made out to) Current mailing address
Thanks again. Warmest regards,

Smolarczyk inspected Gonzalez's apartment that week, which by that time had new tenants in it. The new tenants texted Gonzalez afterward to say that Smolarczyk told them all was good with the apartment, Gonzalez said.

It was then that Smolarczyk ceased all contact with Gonzalez. He declined to respond to her dozens of follow-up emails or voicemails asking for the deposit, she told Patch.

Last week, Smolarczyk turned his phone off, Gonzalez surmised, because when she calls now, she said it goes straight to voicemail, and her texts are no longer reading as delivered.

"My last couple of voicemails said, 'Please get back to me. I don't want to have to file a suit in Small Claims Court, but I will."

Gonzalez consulted a handful of tenants' rights lawyers. They all said the same thing, she said: She needed an address to which to send a court summons if she wanted to take him to court.

But Smolarczyk's company, which is just him and his father, Jozef Smolarczyk, has no clearly publicized address, Gonzalez said. She has a list of possible addresses that she dug up from Google, but it costs her $42 for every summons she sends, and she doesn't want to spend a fortune on inaccurate addresses only to have them all returned to sender.

Horowitz, the receiver for Smolarczyk, told Patch he has a court order against Smolarczyk for declining to pay him any security deposit money he owed his tenants.

"I never received one nickel of security from Sylvester Smorlarczyk," Horowitz said. "We're still fighting in court, and he's in the process of selling the building anyway."

Smolarczyk's current lawyer, Edward Cudde, told Patch that Horowitz, as receiver, was responsible for returning Gonzalez's security deposit.

Patch told Cudde that Horowitz claimed he never received security money from Smolarczyk.

"I don't know what Harry Horowitz has or doesn't have, but he is the receiver according to the court," Cudde said.

The Smolarczyks sued Madison Capital Realty, their lenders for Gonzalez's building, in 2015 for $150 million due to alleged "predatory lending," public court records show. A judge dismissed the case with prejudice in January 2016.

Meanwhile, Blodnick, Fazio, & Associates (Fazio being Tom Fazio, Smolarczyk's former attorney who was emailing with Gonzalez in October) are suing Smolarczyk for declining to pay the law firm for their representation since August 2016, according to public court records. Blodnick, Fazio, & Associates alleges that Smolarczyk owes it over $71,600 in unpaid legal fees, according to the latest statement it sent him, which is dated Oct. 26, court documents show. The firm also alleges that Smolarczyk has declined to make contact with it since that statement was sent.

Smolarczyk did not respond to Patch's multiple requests for comment.

Meeker Avenue tenant Gonzalez has since moved to Philadelphia, which makes filing a Small Court claim in New York more difficult for her, she said.

"I just moved to a new city, which has a ton of costs, it took me two months to get a job so I had to dip into savings, and I have a dog to care for," Gonzalez said. The dog is an adopted 4-year-old Chihuahua mix named Bruce, who has turned out to have numerous costly illnesses, Gonzalez added.

Two other people who lived in Gonzalez's building during and after the foreclosure told Gonzalez that they, too, never got their security deposits back from Smolarczyk, Gonzalez said. Patch has followed up with them.

Photo courtesy of GG Gonzalez, lead photo courtesy of Shutterstock