Public advocate candidate Jenifer Rajkumar's (D) role in tenant lawsuit laced with controversy
Public advocate candidate Jenifer Rajkumar blasted out social media campaign ads last week that say she once “fought a mega landlord and won a $100M lawsuit for freezing families.”
But a Daily News review of public records shows Rajkumar’s involvement in the lawsuit was fraught with controversy and accusations of plagiarism.
The class action lawsuit in question was filed in 2014 by tenants at Gateway Plaza, a Manhattan housing complex, who alleged their landlord was to blame for “uninhabitable conditions” in their apartments.
Rajkumar, currently a State Assembly member representing Queens, was one of three lawyers who filed the original Manhattan Supreme Court complaint on behalf of the tenants on April 1, 2014. Rajkumar was at the time a solo practitioner attorney operating in an “of counsel” capacity for Sanford Heisler, a Manhattan firm where the two other lawyers listed on the complaint worked.
https://www.nydailynews.com/2025/05/23/public-advocate-candidate-jennifer-rajkumars-role-in-tenant-lawsuit-laced-with-controversy/