‘Where is Mr. Charrington?’ Protestors want answers in seizure of 84-year-old

Members of the People’s Coalition to Stop Deed Theft and Black Lives Matter Greater New York, along with supporters of the family of Carmella Charrington held an emergency press conference on June 30 outside the New York Attorney General’s Office in Manhattan to ask why 84-year-old Allman Charrington, Carmella’s father, was seized by law enforcement.

The emergency press conference was called after New York City sheriffs took Charrington into custody on June 26, near his family’s 212 Jefferson Avenue brownstone in Bedford-Stuyvesant. Demonstrators stood in front of Attorney General Letitia James’s office building holding posters and speaking through bullhorns. The activists point to her having said she defends homeowners facing deed theft.

The Charrington family and their supporters say, however, that the state has done little to stop ongoing efforts to remove them from the home they have claimed for 60 years.

The press conference was a demand for James to intervene and use the power of her office to address the Charrington case. Charrington told the Amsterdam News that her father was out walking to the park with his grandson and two great-grandchildren when sheriff’s department officers surrounded them. Allman Charrington was taken from the street. She said family members were not allowed to go with him and were left without clear information about where he was, his access to medication, or his care.

He was sent back to Georgia, where he is listed as a ward of the state, The New York Daily News reported.

Those at the press conference said Allman Charrington’s removal was the latest incident in a case that has gained international attention.

The Charrington family has owned 212 Jefferson Avenue for six decades, but after an August 2021 court case, Georgia attorney Luanne Bonnie was designated as Allman Charrington’s conservator, and Charrington was designated a ward of the state of Georgia. His daughter, Carmella Charrington, and her supporters have argued that the conservatorship was used to help sell the family’s Brooklyn property for $1.4 million in 2023.

Because of the Georgia conservatorship, Brooklyn Civil Court Judge Rachel Freier had ordered Carmella Charrington to bring her father to court, but Carmella didn’t, arguing that she has a power of attorney in force over her father. Carmella was held in contempt and spent six days on Rikers Island. The Charringtons thought the property and custody issues would be taken up again at the next court hearing in July, but, they say, the warrant authorizing sheriffs to seize Allman Charrington was never taken down.

“So why not an investigation?” Omar Hardy, state committee member-elect in Brooklyn’s 56th Assembly District, said to those in front of the AG’s office. “Why do we resort to kidnapping? Why do we allow Georgia to come in and bully us? Or is there a backroom deal being worked out? That is not okay. That is racketeering at the highest level.”

Chivona Newsome, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Greater New York, tied the Charrington case to a longer history of Black people building homes, businesses, and communities only to see them attacked or stripped away. Black people pull themselves out of poverty, she said, “but when they do, when they own townhouses, when they have Black Wall Street, when they have Rosewood, what happens? It is destroyed by white supremacy.

“Governor Hochul needs to pass two different bills,” she continued, “one of them requiring this office, of Letitia James, to work with the Department of State to bring justice to these Black family homeowners.”

Donovan Smith, said he knew Allman as a calm elder and fellow retired transit worker enjoying live with his grandchildren and great-.grandchildren.

“I saw him with the family, and I knew he was happy with his family, and as an elder of the community, this is what you want. You want your senior years to be happy, to be productive, and for that family bond to grow, right?”

City officials characterized the seizure of Allman Charrington as the execution of a court order. The New York Daily News reported speaking with a Department of Finance spokesperson, who said the Sheriff’s Office located Charrington and took him to a local hospital, and that he remained in the sheriff’s custody, with medical care available, until Georgia officials arrived to escort him back to Georgia.

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