Ray Cortez bought his Brooklyn townhouse in the 1960s. Now, he faces eviction stemming from what he and his lawyers say is a case of deed theft. His neighbors are fighting to save his home.
Ray Cortez with his son, Ray Cortez Jr. , inside the Brooklyn brownstone he bought in 1969.Chau Lam/Gothamist
“I never imagined they would have done a thing like that, never,” said Cortez, who’s been diagnosed with early onset dementia. “Even now, I don’t feel good because of all this.”Now, the block association on this tree-lined street in an area where Boerum Hill and Park Slope meet is fighting to help him stay in his home, where he’s lived for the last 53 years.
“I hate the idea of someone who has lived in their home as long as he has being pushed out of their home,” Holcomb said. “It feels horribly unfair and inhuman.” “My mother loved to listen to music and so did my father,” he said. “There was always music on in the house.” Ray Jr. alleges that Calle took his father to several lenders between 2000 and 2004. According to Ray Jr., Calle had his father sign documents during those visits. Cortez said he was later told his loan requests were denied.“You can see the churning that starts to go on with mortgages and Mr. Cortez’s property,” said Bill Lienhard, one of Cortez’s attorneys.
Cortez said Calle introduced him to a Queens-based lawyer in 2006 named Arelia Taveras to draw up the paperwork returning the deed to Cortez, who still has a copy of the documents in his possession.
In 2016, a judge denied Cortez’s request to stop the foreclosure. His lawsuit against Calle alleging fraud was dismissed in 2018 – partly because Cortez’s family could no longer afford to pay for legal representation. That same year, the house was sold for $2 million at a foreclosure sale to a limited liability company on Long Island that calls itself CHAI 91 St. Mark Place. It asked a judge to evict Cortez. The judge has yet to issue a ruling.
For a while, painting occupied Cortez’s time. Since he was a boy, Cortez enjoyed creating images using brushes and pencils. His first-floor apartment is filled with still lifes and landscapes on large and small canvases. Some sit on an easel, others on the sofa and the floor, resting upright against walls.
Ray Jr. didn’t speak to his father for several months after learning what happened. Then, he hired a lawyer to stop the foreclosure and bring a fraud case against Calle, burning through nearly $30,000 in attorney’s fees, he said, before he was forced to stop. Cortez’s neighbors decided to use the Warren St. Marks Community Garden, located directly across the street from Cortez’s house, as a way to draw in other members of the community and gather signatures on a petition, calling on officials to investigate the dubious circumstances that led Cortez to lose his home. A dozen residents gathered under umbrellas on a rainy spring weekend, collecting roughly 150 signatures over two days.
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