Tenants allege Kushner firm pushed them out of their homes
NEW YORK — Twenty current and former residents of one of the largest buildings owned by the Kushner Cos. allege in a $10 million lawsuit that the firm used relentless, noisy construction that exposed them to cancer-causing dust as part of a campaign to get rent-stabilized tenants out and high-priced luxury condo buyers in.
The lawsuit and a separate state investigation followed an Associated Press story Sunday detailing the business practices of the family firm while it was run run much of that time by President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and now White House adviser Jared Kushner.
More than a dozen tenants described hammering and drilling so loud it drowned out normal conversation, rats crawling through holes, shaking walls, workers with passkeys barging in unannounced, and so much dust that it covered beds and clothes in closets. They say those conditions, along with rent hikes of $500 or more a month, made living there unbearable.
“They won, they succeeded,” says Barth Bazyluk, who left apartment C606 with his wife and baby daughter in December. “You have to be ignorant or dumb to think this wasn’t deliberate.”