The three district leaders reluctantly answer questions after a reporter blocks the elevator doors.
BY JACK DELANEY
jdelaney@queensledger.com
DOWNTOWN — A lawsuit over sweeping rule changes within the Brooklyn Democratic Party has been delayed by a week due to a clerical error, increasing the pressure for a resolution before a key leadership vote next month.
That’s not to say its first two hearings have been uneventful: From an attorney yelling “I will speak!” at the bemused judge, to a pregnant reporter body-blocking the elevator doors as three district leaders tried to make an Irish exit, the suit’s early skirmishes suggest that the losing side — whichever way the verdict falls — will go down swinging.
The dispute dates back to June, when current party chair Rodneyse Bichotte Hermelyn seemed set to lose her position after candidates affiliated with two anti-establishment groups, the New Kings Democrats (NKD) and Brooklyn Can’t Wait, flipped eight of the nine contested district leader seats in the primaries — a result that bumped the reform coalition’s numbers up to 22, securing the majority it needs to oust her.
But Bichotte Hermelyn struck back. On August 19, she proposed a raft of amendments to the party’s by-laws, adding 48 new members to the executive committee and raising the voting threshold to revert the changes to 85%, which lame-duck district leaders narrowly approved several days later at a secretive meeting in Mill Basin.
The rule changes triggered widespread backlash, briefly uniting such unlikely allies as Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Senator Chuck Schumer. Hakeem Jeffries, the top-ranking Democrat in the House, said he was “suprised” and “opposed.” Longtime Brooklyn rep Brad Lander called it a “naked power grab.” Tony Melone, the president of NKD put it in terms that were just as stark: “We can’t have another January 6 moment in Brooklyn.”
The reformers, who have united behind Julio Peña III as their pick to replace Bichotte Hermelyn, sued to overturn the amendments before the meeting, but Kings County Supreme Court Justice Jill Epstein ruled that they would need to re-file once the measures had been formally adopted.
So the coalition returned on September 2, holding an abbreviated press conference in front of Brooklyn Borough Hall before funneling into a nearby court building. The anticipation was palpable — lawyers for the reform camp had opted to sue on the grounds that outgoing district leaders do not have the power to vote on rule changes after they’ve been defeated. How would the defense frame its counter-argument?
The first hearing offered few answers. Conspicuously, Bichotte Hermelyn never appeared. But as the attorneys filed up the aisle to their seats before the dais, three district leaders listed in the suit — Anthony Beckford, Arleny Alvarado-McCalla, and Heriberto Mateo — followed them and sat waiting to be called.
It quickly became clear that the defense was looking to postpone the case, maintaining that the trio had not been given enough time to find legal representation. Yet Epstein insisted that because her decision would almost certainly be appealed, further delays would scuttle any chance of resolving the suit before the leadership vote.
Up sprang Anthony Genovesi, Jr., the law chair of the Brooklyn Dems and a partner at Abrams Fensterman, a firm which counts Frank Carone — the disgraced aide to former Mayor Eric Adams — and ex-party boss Frank Seddio as alums.
“They don’t have rights?” said Genovesi loudly, pointing his finger at the three district leaders, who technically were not being represented by him. As Epstein calmly explained her reasoning, his voice grew louder, until the court reporter finally interjected to say that she wasn’t able to transcribe the hearing accurately since he was interrupting the judge.
One facet of the situation was particularly strange: As law chair, Genovesi had played a direct role in electing Justice Epstein to her seat. In fact, a simple Google search by journalists in the courtroom’s second row returned an image of Epstein posing shoulder-to-shoulder with Bichotte Hermelyn, beaming. That was to be expected — one of the Brooklyn Democratic Party’s main sources of power is its monopoly on nominating county-level judges, which incentivizes candidates to stay on the party’s good side. (The reform bloc did not object to Epstein overseeing the case, though the initial judge assigned to the case, Kenneth Sherman, recused himself.)
In the end, Epstein gave the district leaders a reprieve of one day. When the hearing resumed the next morning, neither Alvarado-McCalla nor Mateo showed; Beckford, sporting an intricately-carved cane, said he would represent himself.
But there was a new roadblock to the case proceeding. The night before, the petitioners’ attorneys — led by Mark Hanna — and Genovesi had both noticed a clerical oversight: Hanna and his team had omitted Bichotte Hermelyn’s name from a key document, the order to show cause. Genovesi pounced, arguing that although she had been served with a notice of the lawsuit, the error meant that his opponents had failed to follow protocol.
Epstein, initially skeptical, probed whether Bichotte Hermelyn had really been left in the dark. “I believe you appeared for her yesterday,” she told Genovesi.
“We’re arguing now whether we should just entirely circumvent the order to show cause,” he retorted. “The case law on this is not discretional. It’s absolute.”
“It is a jurisdictional defect,” Epstein said thoughtfully. Eventually, she relented: “I would want [Bichotte Hermelyn] to have the opportunity to be here personally. Given that her name is not on the paper, I would question that.”
Hanna and his partners, sheepish, looked on as Epstein explained that the hearing would be rescheduled to Tuesday, September 8.
Afterwards, foot soldiers from the reform coalition lingered in the hallway, outlasting the journalists who gradually filtered off to write their stories. Down by the benches outside Borough Hall, Anthony Beckford stood laughing with a friend.
