The Law Offices of Michael JS Pontone, Esq

08/17/2018

Aeliana has been my client since 2016. She is falling through the cracks because of the contempt of city agencies and I can only file so many motions to strike a year. Please share and get the word out. Write your congressperson, city council member, community organizer, whomever you can get to listen

Aeliana Boyer was struck in Brooklyn in 2016, yet the Fire Department of New York City remains unresponsive to requests for information on the driver who injured her.

11/21/2017

Landlord/Tenant reminder:

Hey everyone, I've been getting a lot of messages as of late from concerned tenants who have been the subject of baseless threats from their landlords. The usual fact pattern is that a tenant contacts me saying that they are on a month to month tenancy without a lease, or that their lease is due to expire or has recently expired.

They almost always say something along the lines of "my landlord says I have no lease so he's going to come and remove my things and change the locks." Please be aware this is just a load of hot air, and an extremely common form of tenant intimidation that has almost no basis in reality.

In the city of New York, the only way to be evicted from a home that you have resided in for more than thirty days is by service of a preliminary notice, a notice of petition and petition thereafter, and adjudication of your case by a housing court judge with the issuance of a judgment of possession and a warrant of eviction. The whole process, at minimum, takes roughly three months and that is without raising defenses.

While you can be removed from your home as a response to the filing of a restraining order, this is very rare and usually only occurs in situations where there have been criminal allegations.

BE AWARE OF YOUR RIGHTS. As tenants in New York City, you have many, many rights that a landlord must respect and abide by. Failure of a landlord to do so will only result in a headache for them when you have the right legal representation. While I am a private attorney who represents tenants, there are many many excellent pro bono attorney groups that will help tenants in NYC who cannot afford representation.

As always, if anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Sincerely,
Michael

11/16/2017

CW: r**e, assault, law suit.

My office has filed a civil litigation case in Kings County Supreme Court as a response to a s*xual assault. Any colleagues or friends who are interested in reading the pleadings please DM me for the link to the same. It is a matter of public record but my client obviously did not want her named shared on this public a forum.

So far, the reaction I've gotten from opposing counsel is one that makes me want to spit. On a phone call he stated that his client was "furious" that after being pursued criminally for the assault he committed, he was now being sued civilly.

Opposing counsel also said, "you weren't there so you don't know what happened." This is a man who was a former prosecutor. I asked him point blank, "does this mean that when you were a prosecutor you would only pursue r**e cases that occurred in public?"

He also did not know what AZT was when I mentioned that my client had to go on it for 30 days following her assault at the hands of his client. This highlights the level of ignorance that people are going to have to overcome if anything is going to change.

I am going to try to keep up the blog as this case progresses. If anyone has any questions, please feel free to message me or call me.

-Michael

02/03/2017

The absence of regular civil litigation suits against s*xual assault perpetrators is appalling. The fact that personal injury attorneys aggressively market to car accident and slip and fall plaintiffs but not to s*xual assault victims is a patent under-representation and the personal injury bar should be ashamed.

http://www.alllaw.com/articles/nolo/personal-injury/victim-s*xual-assault-file-civil-lawsuit.html

Victims of s*xual assault or s*xual abuse can file a case in civil court against the perpetrator, and in some cases, additional parties.

02/02/2017

Anyone who has studied and practiced the law understands that the main criteria to disqualify a law is that it be arbitrary and capricious. I've not come across any more arbitrary and capricious laws that those that criminalize s*x work.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29627-s*x-workers-lawsuit-claims-california-s-prostitution-law-is-unconstitutional

S*x workers argue that selling consensual s*x harms no one and should be decriminalized.