For 60 years, the brownstone on Jefferson Avenue in Bed-Stuy was more than just bricks and mortar; it was Carmella Charrington‘s family’s backdrop for Sunday dinners and the promised inheritance for her grandchildren. That is, until the Black homeowner says she fell victim to deed theft and is pending eviction from a paid-off brownstone that had been in her family for generations.
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It starts with a knock on the door or a confusing letter in the mail, often targeting elderly homeowners who spent a lifetime paying off their mortgages in rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods with soaring property values, in neighborhoods like Brooklyn’s Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights.
It’s as cold and calculated as it is devastating when scammers either forge signatures on documents to transfer property ownership to themselves or a shell company— often an LLC— without the owner’s consent, or pose as financial rescuers, per the New York State Attorney General. These swindlers offer to help seniors clear a tax lien or water bill, only to sneak in a quitclaim deed sandwiched between a stack of complex legal documents.
By the time the family realizes the ruse, the scammer has already recorded the deed and begun eviction proceedings in a successful theft of deed— a Class B felony.
That’s what longtime Bed-Stuy resident Carmella Charrington said happened to her.
More than a year and a half ago, developer 227 Group LLC tried to change the locks on her home after a conservator representing her father, Allman Charrington, received approval to sell the property, the New York Times reported. City records show the brownstone was sold in January 2024 to 227 Group.
However, Charrington said in court papers the brownstone had been in her family for 60 years and that the developer “orchestrated a fake sale.” 227 Group filed to evict her and others living on the second floor months later.
Charrington was arrested and held behind bars at Rikers Island for nearly a week after she was declared in contempt of court by the judge in her two-year long legal dispute with 227 Group, according to local news channel PIX 11.
Upon her release from Rikers, which she described to the Times as “like a human cage,” her home at 212 Jefferson Ave. was surrounded by supporters when authorities showed up to evict her around 8 a.m. Wednesday (April 22), New York Amsterdam News reported. “The community is here helping, but this is so traumatizing for everybody,” Charrington told News 12 Brooklyn.
It was there that Councilman Chi Ossé was thrown to the ground and arrested for allegedly attempting to stop the police in a heated exchange caught on camera. He now faces obstructing governmental administration and two counts of disorderly conduct charges, per the Times.
“They are literally stealing people’s homes and selling them for millions of dollars,” Council member Sandy Nurse said— a scheme the data confirms. The predatory pattern of investors snatching homes that often look distressed or in foreclosure to sell for a quick profit while displacing Black homeowners has escalated significantly.
Council member Julie Menin confirmed the rising statistics, telling News 12 Brooklyn, “Deed theft complaints are up nearly 300%, largely affecting Black homeowners.” Complaints to the New York Attorney General’s Office climbed 240% between 2023 and 2025, a more-than-threefold jump.
In an effort to combat rising deed fraud, the NYC Department of Finance has issued recommendations to homeowners, including registering for Title Alerts, consistently searching your property on the Automated City Register Information System to ensure no unauthorized documents have been filed and to never sign a document that has blank spaces.
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