Help A Neighbor Victimized by a Grifter
Donation protected
UPDATES 04 February 2021
Goal
We have increased the goal for Heidi and Val as their extended costs of paying legal bills, as well as their home maintenance arrears that have accumulated due to not being able to evict this grifter from their home, has ballooned.
THANK YOU ALL!!!!! Our local neighborhood and NYC community along with extended community support from around the nation, and even the globe, is incredible and heartening to see.
Please read and share this New York Magazine investigative article by Bridget Read detailing the 20 year trail of grifting by the
West Village Grifter who continues to occupy their home. It runs in the February 1, 2021 print publication and online on
NYMag's The Cut:
https://www.thecut.com/article/kate-gladstone-roommate-west-village-nyc.html#_ga=2.116588111.853518451.1612493467-1952393491.1612493467
Heidi and her partner are still waiting for the courts to allow them to execute the warrant of eviction they secured in February of 2020, and save their home and future security.
In solidarity,
Heidi and Val's Fundraising Team
********************************************************
THE STORY...
Our West Village neighbor and my friend, Heidi Russell, has been tormented for a year by a scamming, destructive roommate who has refused to pay rent for a spare bedroom after paying for only ONE month in June 2019 or move. After asking her several times to move out, Heidi had to hire a lawyer to get through the costly and time consuming eviction process. Heidi was poised to be able to get this horrible person out on March 31st with a warrant of eviction her lawyers secured...then the pandemic blanket eviction moratorium hit. This person is a seasoned grifter and has done this very same thing to other people in the West Village and beyond, using her maiden name (Kate Gladstone), and has also been indicted on felonies and arrested for violating protection orders under her legal married name (Katherine Klein). Because of the coronavirus blanket eviction moratorium this grifter was awarded a Housing court order allowing her to come back into Heidi’s small apartment, even though the grifter left for over two weeks with no word in July. The judge is allowing this grifter to endanger Heidi’s life further!
Heidi has spent all her money and energy in the past year fighting this squatter and now has lost her job due to the pandemic, has had to borrow thousands of dollars for legal fees, and is literally down to a skeleton weekly budget for basic bills and food while she tries to protect her home. She needs our help! Please give whatever you can!
You may have read about this in the NY Post and other media outlets because the court papers are full of such incredible stories - the mess that the grifter has made of Heidi’s neat apartment, the bizarre accusations she hurls at Heidi, blocking common areas, and spraying cleaning chemicals all over Heidi’s bedroom door and directly on Heidi. This article describes the nightmare that has become Heidi's life.
https:/nypost.com/2020/08/22/serial-grifter-avoids-eviction-from-womams-nyc-home-suit/?
Heidi is a fine-art photographer, indie publisher and curator, and founded International Women Artists' Salon in 2008 to promote women in the arts around the world, including hosting a radio show, exhibitions, conferences and other showcases for women artists - you can find her on Facebook, LinkedIn and her photography Instagram is @HeidiRussellGlobal.
She is a kind and generous person and a good neighbor. She needs and deserves our help. Please give whatever you can to get her through this nightmare until she can find some justice.
Https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/nyc-grifter-roomie-spend-first-week-after-squatters-return
Note:
Heidi asks that if you or someone you know has been affected by a housing grifter prior to the pandemic or using the pandemic as a shield to contact her at [email redacted]. Because of firsthand experience she is also on a mission as an activist to help amend the tenant/landlord housing laws to be more fair for single homeowners and lessees who need to rent a spare room to make ends meet, who bare an unfair burden of cost, time, and often personal safety, to protect their homes.
Thank you!
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/how-protecting-tenants-hurts-innocents/
Other Press
https://thevillagesun.com/village-woman-fights-to-evict-serial-grifter
Goal
We have increased the goal for Heidi and Val as their extended costs of paying legal bills, as well as their home maintenance arrears that have accumulated due to not being able to evict this grifter from their home, has ballooned.
THANK YOU ALL!!!!! Our local neighborhood and NYC community along with extended community support from around the nation, and even the globe, is incredible and heartening to see.
Please read and share this New York Magazine investigative article by Bridget Read detailing the 20 year trail of grifting by the
West Village Grifter who continues to occupy their home. It runs in the February 1, 2021 print publication and online on
NYMag's The Cut:
https://www.thecut.com/article/kate-gladstone-roommate-west-village-nyc.html#_ga=2.116588111.853518451.1612493467-1952393491.1612493467
Heidi and her partner are still waiting for the courts to allow them to execute the warrant of eviction they secured in February of 2020, and save their home and future security.
In solidarity,
Heidi and Val's Fundraising Team
********************************************************
THE STORY...
Our West Village neighbor and my friend, Heidi Russell, has been tormented for a year by a scamming, destructive roommate who has refused to pay rent for a spare bedroom after paying for only ONE month in June 2019 or move. After asking her several times to move out, Heidi had to hire a lawyer to get through the costly and time consuming eviction process. Heidi was poised to be able to get this horrible person out on March 31st with a warrant of eviction her lawyers secured...then the pandemic blanket eviction moratorium hit. This person is a seasoned grifter and has done this very same thing to other people in the West Village and beyond, using her maiden name (Kate Gladstone), and has also been indicted on felonies and arrested for violating protection orders under her legal married name (Katherine Klein). Because of the coronavirus blanket eviction moratorium this grifter was awarded a Housing court order allowing her to come back into Heidi’s small apartment, even though the grifter left for over two weeks with no word in July. The judge is allowing this grifter to endanger Heidi’s life further!
Heidi has spent all her money and energy in the past year fighting this squatter and now has lost her job due to the pandemic, has had to borrow thousands of dollars for legal fees, and is literally down to a skeleton weekly budget for basic bills and food while she tries to protect her home. She needs our help! Please give whatever you can!
You may have read about this in the NY Post and other media outlets because the court papers are full of such incredible stories - the mess that the grifter has made of Heidi’s neat apartment, the bizarre accusations she hurls at Heidi, blocking common areas, and spraying cleaning chemicals all over Heidi’s bedroom door and directly on Heidi. This article describes the nightmare that has become Heidi's life.
https:/nypost.com/2020/08/22/serial-grifter-avoids-eviction-from-womams-nyc-home-suit/?
Heidi is a fine-art photographer, indie publisher and curator, and founded International Women Artists' Salon in 2008 to promote women in the arts around the world, including hosting a radio show, exhibitions, conferences and other showcases for women artists - you can find her on Facebook, LinkedIn and her photography Instagram is @HeidiRussellGlobal.
She is a kind and generous person and a good neighbor. She needs and deserves our help. Please give whatever you can to get her through this nightmare until she can find some justice.
Https://nypost.com/2020/08/29/nyc-grifter-roomie-spend-first-week-after-squatters-return
Note:
Heidi asks that if you or someone you know has been affected by a housing grifter prior to the pandemic or using the pandemic as a shield to contact her at [email redacted]. Because of firsthand experience she is also on a mission as an activist to help amend the tenant/landlord housing laws to be more fair for single homeowners and lessees who need to rent a spare room to make ends meet, who bare an unfair burden of cost, time, and often personal safety, to protect their homes.
Thank you!
https://nypost.com/2020/08/24/how-protecting-tenants-hurts-innocents/
Other Press
https://thevillagesun.com/village-woman-fights-to-evict-serial-grifter
Organizer and beneficiary
Myra Lobel
Organizer
New York, NY
Heidi Russell
Beneficiary
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