Broward County government is poised to sue a
55-and-older condominium in Coconut Creek’s Wynmoor community for
trying to evict a younger man.
If county commissioners agree on Tuesday, the
county’s attorneys would have permission to file suit in federal
court against Portofino Isle, arguing it shouldn’t have tried to
evict 50-year-old Scott Spector. He’s disabled, the county argues,
and must be given permission to remain.
Spector said “two guys with hammers tried to
kill me over a cup of coffee” many years ago in New York City,
causing permanent mental and physical disabilities.
Since he asserted his right to live in the condo
as a disabled person, he said, the condo president and others have
screamed and yelled at him, set up a surveillance camera pointed at
his door and sent him threatening letters. The condo filed an eviction
action against him, as well.
“These are the type of animals I deal with,”
Spector said Monday.
The county’s suit will seek assurance Spector
can remain, plus damages for Spector and attorney’s fees for the
county, among other things.
Portofino attorney Mark Bogen said the condo has
backed off the eviction, though he acknowledged that nothing to that
effect has been put in writing.
He said Spector was not harassed or mistreated
and isn’t entitled to a “penny” of damages. He said Portofino
was merely defending its 55-and-older status against possible fraud.
The first medical documentation Spector provided
was from a chiropractor, Bogen noted, even though the disability is a
brain injury.
“We’re not going to be extorted for money
for doing our job,” Bogen said.
Spector moved in when he was 37, but that was
fine, because his grandmother lived there, too. When she died two
years ago, the condo took action to try to move him out. That’s when
he alerted the condo to his disability.
One of his doctors wrote that Spector would
“not be able to survive on his own” if evicted and might have
suicidal thoughts.
His chiropractor wrote that this was a matter of
“life and death” for him.
Spector originally complained to the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development, defender of the federal
Fair Housing Act, which gives disabled people the right to have a
“reasonable accommodation” in housing. In Broward, that federal
agency’s housing cases are handled by the county, and that’s where
Spector’s case landed.
The cost is borne, though, by the federal
government.
Broward County’s lawyers investigated
Spector’s case and determined the condo violated federal law as well
as the county’s Human Rights Act “by denying complainant a
reasonable accommodation because of his disabilities and coercing,
intimidating, threatening or interfering” with his attempt to
exercise his rights.
Broward County went to court just last month to
sue another Broward condo, Ventnor H. Condominium Association in
Deerfield Beach, part of Century Village, for alleged discrimination
against a woman who lives there with a Chihuahua.
The condo has a rule against pets, but the
county argues in that suit that Phyllis Schleifer is emotionally
disabled and needs the pet for comfort.
That case is also supported with federal dollars
as part of the county’s agreement to handle complaints typically
handled by HUD.