Who Is Eileen Myers Really?
To Putnam Valley residents, Eileen Myers is the person most associated with three homes on Lake Drive whose troubled septic systems have long plagued that Lake Peekskill neighborhood and the town, county and state regulators charged with enforcing their use. By all appearances, she is a frail, older wisp of a woman who struggles to maintain her properties.
But appearances can be deceiving. With a real estate empire valued at over $13 million that includes 32 buildings with 47 rental units in five municipalities, Myers turns out to be a feisty and prodigious local real estate mogul. For years, she has largely succeeded in outmaneuvering lawyers, banks, tenants, and even municipalities. Much to the frustration of Putnam Valley and county officials, she has dragged out making septic repairs to her Lake Drive homes for six months.
Myers, now 74, began assembling her portfolio in 1996 by purchasing a home in Peekskill, which remains the epicenter of her efforts. Jemab Family Limited Partnership owns 23 one-to-three family homes there, along with six rental homes in Putnam Valley, and one each in Carmel, Cortlandt, and Yorktown. The limited partnership through which Myers acquires properties is also active across the Hudson.
Jemab’s modus operandi is to purchase properties cheaply (some without clear title) by buying them from banks, estates, auctions of foreclosed homes and surrogate’s court, which handles estates without wills.
Jemab frequently ends up in lawsuits that take years to wind their way through the judicial system. A review of court records indicates Jemab and Myers have duked it out in state and federal courts with banks, creditors, tenants, title companies, insurance companies, the City of Peekskill, which fined Jemab $25,000 for failing to address building code violations, and even Myers’ own lawyers. She was sued by one of her lawyers for failure to pay and Jemab sued another, accusing him of federal racketeering.
Myers' legal maneuvering
Myers’ track record is one to be reckoned with. Court records show that Jemab has never lost a building to foreclosure. Myers has eventually outlasted such major banks as Chase, Bank of New York, Wells Fargo, HSBC and Citimortgage along with their threats to take her company’s homes for nonpayment of mortgages. Often, she delays or avoids judgements by citing improper servicing of legal notices or changing lawyers.
The most extreme example of this cat-and-mouse approach occurred in the early 2000’s. Initially, Myers bought properties in her own name. But in 2005, about three weeks after receiving notice that a tenant had filed suit, seeking damages for having broken her leg on stairs she said were in disrepair, Myers created two companies in Nevada. They had similar names: Jemab Family Limited Partnership and Jemaa Family Limited Partnership. In December 2005, she transferred 15 properties in Peekskill and Yorktown from her personal ownership to Jemab. The next day, she transferred eight properties in Putnam Valley, including what had been her own residence on Sleepy Brook Lane, to Jemaa, land records show.
Litigation ensued, with the injured tenant, Delia Lopez, alleging that the partnership had been created to protect Myers’ holdings from attachment to pay the $138,408 award. That award continued to grow at 9 percent a year while Myers failed to make the court-ordered payment. State Supreme Court Justice Joan Lefkowitz seemed to agree with Lopez’s characterization, writing that: “Defendant Myers is not a sympathetic victim having engaged in fraudulent transfer of her properties.”
Although Myers initially listed herself as Jemab’s general partner and remains that today, in 2007 her son, James Lierman, stated in a court document that he was the general partner of Jemab. He added that Jemab did not own the property when Lopez was injured on the staircase. At the time, he was a sophomore at Stony Brook University, according to his Linkedin profile. Now an attorney with Morgan Stanley & Co. in New York City, Lierman told Watching Putnam Valley that he is no longer affiliated with his mother’s companies.
The transfer of properties from Myers to Jemab and Jemaa was followed in 2006 by a case in Putnam County’s Surrogate’s Court. There, Judge Robert E. Miller ruled against Myers in a guardianship matter involving the transfer of property to her son. At the time, James was affiliated with Jemaa.
The case involved eight properties in Putnam Valley, including 62 Lake Drive and 66 Lake Drive, both currently the subject of Putnam County Health Department action. In that case, Myers exercised her Fifth Amendment rights and did not testify. The judge found that Myers had failed to obey court orders to pay the legal fees for a law guardian to represent her son, failed to pay a $500 fine, and had “transferred property in an attempt to thwart the authority of the court.” The judge voided the deeds and appointed a receiver to oversee the transferred properties.
With the legal wrangling over payment of the Lopez judgment continuing through the court system, Myers eventually filed for bankruptcy in February 2011. She resolved the matter in 2014 with a restructuring of her debt.
A self-reliant entrepreneur
Unlike many real estate barons, Myers does not rely heavily on others. She has learned enough about the judicial system to represent herself in cases and told people recently that she’s studying to take the septic installer’s exam so she can get licensed to oversee the septic repairs on her properties.
Joe Tanzi, a longtime friend and the father of her son, says Myers is deeply involved in the partnership’s accounting, marketing, and legal strategy. Online ads for Jemab’s rental apartments list Myers as the contact and a for-rent sign at one of Jemab’s properties in Peekskill lists Myers’ cell phone number. Neighbors say she’s spotted monthly on Howard Street in Peekskill, with tenants coming down to her parked Mercedes to pay their rent.
“She’s a hard-working lady,” said Tanzi. “She does it all herself.” When Myers asks Tanzi to help her out on an issue, she expects prompt action. “If she tells you to do something, it won’t be long before she asks: ‘Why didn’t you do it yet?’” he said. “She’ll tell me I should wake up earlier in the morning.”
In early June, Myers attended a hearing at the Putnam County Health Department accompanied by her attorney, Heath Gurinsky. She entered the cramped hearing room with the assistance of a walker. When informed that her presence was not required, she retreated to her black Mercedes 350e in the parking lot, where she talked on her phone with the door open. When this reporter approached with questions about her company, she closed her door and drove away. Calls to her mobile phone seeking comment were not returned.
Myers and her tenants
Myers’ relationship with tenants has run the gamut. Since 2016, Peekskill's Building Department has received 72 complaints about Jemab 's 23 properties. Complainants sought city assistance to address the lack of heat, overgrowth, snow not cleared from a sidewalk, fire safety, infestation, overcrowding, rubbish, and property maintenance. All of the complaints were resolved, according to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Law.
Some tenants appreciate that Myers’ properties are accessible in what has become an increasingly expensive area. Sophia Cantlin, an immigrant from Brazil, said she and a roommate share a one-bedroom apartment in Peekskill that rents for $800 a month. “It’s affordable, especially when I share the rent with my roommate,” Cantlin said.
Last September, as Jemab's general partner, Myers sued Maria Melendez, a Peekskill tenant, seeking $25,000 in legal fees and $75,000 for destruction of property, damage she said was caused by a pit bull attack, and for subletting rooms in the apartment. She argued that Melendez had collected $12,500 in rent from four individuals who lived in the attic with two pit bulls, which endangered tenants in the home’s second apartment and crippled that tenant’s dog.
On May 20, State Supreme Court Justice Walter Rivera balked at the allegations, saying he needed proof of damages as well as documentation that the tenant had received income by subletting rooms in the house. “But there is no photograph, there are no receipts, there are just broad numbers, including legal fees for $25,000,” said Rivera, according to a transcript of the proceeding. “I don't even know if the lease provided for that. I don't even have a copy of the lease attached. There is an allegation that defendant illegally sublet the unit and collected $12,500. Where does that come from? In other words, the record is devoid of any backup that the Court can say that the Court is satisfied that these amounts are due and owing. The mere allegation is just not enough.”
After months of dealing with Myers and Jemab, Putnam County's Health Department seems committed to holding the line. At yesterday's enforcement hearing, the county refused to accede to Gurinsky's request that Jemab be given an extension to the 30 days it was previously given to address the Lake Drive homes' septic problems. Although Gurinsky asked for just two weeks, noting that an engineer had already submitted plans for the repairs, his request was turned down.
As a result, when the 30 days are up tomorrow, Jemab is required to inform the tenants at 62 and 66 Lake Drive that they have 30 days to vacate those properties. If they don't, and the septic repairs are not completed during that time, a 90-day eviction process would commence. The Health Department staff didn't seem terribly sympathetic. "If we had started this in March, we could have been out of here already," said Daniel Reis, the county's senior public health sanitarian who has led the charge in Jemab's various enforcement hearings.
David McKay Wilson, the former Tax Watch columnist at the Journal News, is founder and senior writer at the Hudson Valley Digger, an independent local journalism site on Substack. Additional reporting was provided by Sarah Bartlett.
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