Siblings attempt to evict owner of embattled home

By N. Clark Judd

An ownership battle looms over the Kingsbridge Heights Rehabilitation Center, where members of health care union 1199 SEIU have been striking since February.

Helen Sieger, the proprietor of the for-profit nursing home, has been embroiled in a twoyear legal struggle with two of her siblings, who own the property underneath the nursing home. Meanwhile, every state legislator from the Bronx has signed a letter urging the state Health Department to appoint a receiver for the facility on Cannon Place.

Ms. Sieger's siblings contend she hasn't been paying rent since her lease on the land expired in 2004, and want to kick her out; she says they don't have the right, and are trying to steal the home out from under her, according to court documents.

Ms. Sieger acquired the business in 1994 with money she received from a family trust left by her parents, Michael and Pola Tenenbaum, for her, her brother, and three sisters, court documents show.

Morris Tenenbaum, Ms. Sieger's brother, Briendy Melnicke, her sister, control the property underneath the nursing home through a limited partnership. Ms. Melnicke runs the general partner, Ten Trees Enterprises, Inc.; Mr. Tenenbaum, as trustee for the family trust, is a limited partner.

According to papers filed with the Bronx County Civil Court, Ms. Sieger's lease expired in 2004 and her siblings refused to renew it. On April 30, 2006, their CG Limited Partnership gave Ms. Sieger notice and began the court proceeding to kick her out and take over the home's property.

Ms. Sieger contends that CG Limited Partnership was required to renew her lease, and, as she was a member of the partnership, it owes her money, including over $1.4 million in damages.

Bronx County Civil Court Judge Howard H. Sherman wrote that the family had gone back and forth in Brooklyn Surrogate's Court over their parents' estate since Michael Tenenbaum died in 2004.

"It is Ms. Sieger's contention that this holdover proceeding is an attempt by two of her siblings to steal her business," he wrote in a January 25, 2007 decision to separate Ms. Sieger's contentions from her siblings' efforts to get their alleged back rent.

The move to send Ms. Sieger's demands away to another court is now on appeal before the State Supreme Court's Appellate Division. Appellate court judges have read the case and it is awaiting their ruling, said a court official.

The issue of Ms. Sieger's late payments to her siblings is scheduled to appear before a jury next week in Bronx County Civil Court.

This is part of the May 29, 2008 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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