NYC Rent Stabilized Tenants Get Harrassed

The tenants — many of them cooks, tamale vendors, housekeepers and other low-wage workers of Mexican descent who pay modest rents for the neighborhood and have lived in their building for decades — are battling Raphael Toledano, a former real estate broker who has been acquiring properties in the city in recent years.

Mr. Toledano, 25, bought 444 East 13th Street, near Avenue A, last January — along with two neighboring buildings he later sold — and soon after, the tenants said, property managers came knocking with doomsday situations and buyout offers of up to $50,000. In court documents, Mr. Toledano has denied harassing the tenants, and blamed the property management company, which he subsequently fired, for any problems that occurred.

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