Hell Gate: Their Landlord Was Sent to Rikers. The Heating Outages Continued: ‘It Literally Cannot Get Worse Than This’

Hell Gate
February 10, 2026

Their Landlord Was Sent to Rikers. The Heating Outages Continued: ‘It Literally Cannot Get Worse Than This’
The residents of Hayes Court are taking the rare step of asking a housing court judge to appoint a new entity to manage their buildings—which have racked up 505 open housing violations for gas, heat and hot water outages, filthy common areas, and water leaks.
By Jessy Edwards

This past Saturday, as the temperature dipped into the single digits, the residents at Hayes Court in Jackson Heights lost their heat and hot water. But there was no point in reaching out to their landlord or their property manager—both of them are on Rikers Island after being charged with stealing millions of dollars of federal COVID-19 relief money.

After having endured five years of gas, heat and hot water outages, filthy common areas, water leaks, lead paint, and alleged tenant harassment, the residents of Hayes Court were already on month-two of a rent strike. Now, they’re asking a housing court judge to enact a rarely used City program that allows the court to appoint an independent administrator to take over the operation of a building in cases of extreme neglect.

According to City records, the buildings currently have 505 open violations between them, with more than half of those violations—which include complaints of lack of heat and hot water, and mice and roach infestation—classed as “immediately hazardous.”

“The building belongs to these people that live on Rikers now,” Elissa Welle, one of the Hayes Court residents, told Hell Gate. “It literally cannot get worse than this, right? Even if it is only marginally better, there is no way to go down. Our building is abandoned. We are at rock bottom.”

The Hayes Court tenants—who live in a complex of eight four-story buildings built around a central courtyard at 33-53 82nd Street and 33-54 83 Street—say their housing issues began when the property was bought and taken over in 2021 by HCEC Equities LLC, and the management company, Everest Buildings Management. Mark Anthony is a principal of HCEC Equities, along with Ginny Werner, and Marilyn Peter—who the tenants knew as “Mary”—was their manager.

In November, the Manhattan DA indicted Anthony and Peter on felony grand larceny charges. According to the indictment, the pair submitted fraudulent applications in order to steal $2.2 million in COVID-19 relief funds from federal and state agencies—and $1.2 million of that money was used to buy Hayes Court. (Both Anthony and Peter have pleaded not guilty, and their attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Attorneys representing HCEC owners, including Ginny Werner, did not return requests for comment.)

John Pimiento, 37, lives in Hayes Court with his parents, who are in their 70s. He said his first issue with the new management came just months after the new landlords took over the building, when his apartment lost electricity while his parents were both sick with COVID-19.

Despite sending multiple desperate emails to the manager, he said it took a full week for the electricity to be restored.

“It was one of the worst weeks of our lives,” Pimiento told Hell Gate. “I’m anti-jail, but the moment I saw they had been sent to Rikers, I was like, ‘I don’t need to cry for them. All they’ve done is make our lives miserable.'”

Sandra Fell has lived in the building with her husband and three kids for 18 years and characterized HCEC’s management of the property since 2021 as “hellish and chaotic and crazy.” When she spoke with Hell Gate on Thursday, she’d been without gas for a week, which wasn’t unusual, she said. “We’ve had many, many problems with essential services. And when we do kind of stick up for ourselves, we’re met with either silence or hostility or lies.”

This past Thanksgiving, tenants were again without heat and hot water, leading to the City filing a lawsuit against the landlord and management on Christmas Eve. Then in late January, on one of the coldest days of the year, the tenants’ heat and hot water went out for 40 hours, with another outage happening this past Saturday. Both times, the heating was restored after the City’s Housing Preservation and Development agency sent a crew to fix the issue, according to the tenants and HPD. The buildings are in the City’s Alternative Enforcement Program, which allows it to hire contractors to conduct repair work at Hayes Court and bill the landlord. So far, the City has billed more than $200,000 for repairs at the buildings, HPD said.

It was this January outage that spurred the tenants to go to housing court to ask a judge to appoint an independent administrator for the complex—a program known as 7A. Frustrated, Welle and a handful of other tenants took pots and pans down to their shared inner courtyard for an impromptu protest in 14-degree weather. “It was freezing fucking cold, and I was literally just out there banging pots and pans and saying, ‘No heat, no rent!'” Welle said she was pleasantly surprised, and moved, when other tenants came out to join them.

Under 7A, an independent housing organization approved by HPD and appointed by the court is tasked with collecting rents and running the building. The organization is monitored by HPD, which can also offer some funding for building repairs. To begin the process, at least one-third of a building’s tenants must sign on to a petition. Over one weekend, Welle said she easily got the signatures required.

The landlords and the management company are opposing the tenants’ 7A application, according to Tony Werner, who told Hell Gate last week that he was the new rep for Everest Management.

“They are giving old or partially misleading information to the judge. We can explain to the judge exactly what happened. We have the proof,” Werner said. For example, Werner said the delay on getting the heat back on in January was due to extremely cold temperatures that forced the boiler to switch from gas to oil, and required him to wait for National Grid. He added that repairs were delayed by some tenants, who he called “real troublemakers” who wouldn’t let him into their homes. “These are the things without my control, but they blame me,” he said.

Tenants also said they noticed that Werner moved into Hayes Court soon after news of the fraud indictment dropped, and claimed that Werner’s hired super was asking them for money in exchange for repairs. In a phone call, Werner confirmed that he was the new building manager (“I am in charge of everything. I’m hiring, firing workers. I am ordering contractors, and I’m every day doing the repairs. We spent over $25,000 on all these repairs.”) but denied trying to charge anyone money for repairs. “Maybe he asked for a tip, I don’t know! But I pay him, and he did the work. I have the proof,” he said.

Asked whether he was related to Ginny Werner, one of the HCEC principals who owns Hayes Court, Werner said his lawyer told him he doesn’t have to disclose that information: “That’s nobody’s business.”

In addition to leading the charge collecting signatures for the 7A application, Welle also penned an email to the Mayor’s Office of Tenant Protection Commissioner Cea Weaver last week, hopeful after seeing news of the Mamdani administration securing a settlement for tenants living in other neglected buildings and its attempt to help tenants in the Pinnacle bankruptcy auction.

A spokesperson from the Office of Tenant Protection confirmed they received the letter, met with the Hayes Court tenants and want to support them. The tenants’ attorney, Lino Diaz of Communities Resist, has since sent a follow-up email at the City’s request asking for support on the 7A, increased oversight, and possible district attorney involvement.

Diaz said the 7A process was complicated but necessary in this situation, and added that it could take a long time—he’s been litigating another 7A case for about 18 months. “It is kind of a last resort when you get to the point where enough people in a building say we can’t deal with this management company anymore,” Diaz said. The next steps will be a series of court hearings in which attorneys for both parties present their arguments for why they think the buildings should—or should not—be taken over by an independent administrator.

In the meantime, the tenants are combining their withheld rent in an escrow account, should they need to use it to take care of themselves.

Queens Councilmember Shekar Krishnan, who has been advocating for the tenants since he found out about the neglect in their buildings, called the situation “a textbook case for a 7A administrator.”

“It is abundantly clear that we need to take this building away from the landlord and have someone who can manage it, who will actually do a good job and treat the tenants well,” he said.