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NEA Gutted by indifferent Government, Lyceum Stolen by Appellate Court Judges’  LIES

The National Endowment for the Arts is dying, strangled by politicians who hate culture. The Brooklyn Lyceum is in a similar sinking boat—robbed by judges who lied to foreclose a borough-wide cultural resource. Four judges, a century of experience, led by Valerie Brathwaite Nelson, The New York State Court System’s Ethics Commission chair, dodged our slam-dunk defense to hand the Lyceum to a developer. We’re fighting to save the stage where dancers, artists, actors, and comedians created artistic reality from their dreams.

Join us to torch this scandal and reclaim a home.

The Betrayal: In 2018, the Appellate Division, Second Department, tried to bury the Brooklyn Lyceum with a sham foreclosure ruling. We are fighting back, armed with a killer argument, appellate court lies so gross it’ll make you spit. They didn’t just screw us—they rigged the game.

The Dodge: At oral argument, we stood up and hit them hard: the plaintiff never sent papers to our attorney, a direct challenge to their power to rule. The plaintiff provided its own documents—extensions to answer, a served answer—proving our attorney was in the fight, our champion,our advocate, so every paper had to go to them. Their service records? Not a damn trace of our attorney. That voids the foreclosure, no question. The law says they had to address this jurisdictional argument first. Instead, they bragged about their "reputation" and “thoroughness”, then ignored it. Here is the judicial bragging at oral argument:

“This court is very well known for the quality of its workmanship and the fact that in every single case … big case, little case, many lawyers, no lawyers, pro se or otherwise, we take a hard look at everything that comes up. As you must understand, counsel may cite one or two cases. there are literally hundreds if not thousands of cases on the multiple topics that appear before us .”  …

“we are gonna take a hard look at your presentation, your papers as we are as the respondents counsel and we are gonna decide it the way we see it based on the facts, the law and what's before us”.

Valerie Brathwaite Nelson, ethics chair, led this dodge. Ethics? What a joke.

The Lie: To kill the Lyceum, the appeals court said our motion was too late because it came after the entry of the judgment of foreclosure. They did this without citing any dates. In fact the date our motion purportedly came AFTER, was not even in the record on appeal. THE APPELLATE COURT FLAT OUT LIED if it followed the rule that they are bound only to the appellate record provided by the opposing sides. There is no entry date-time stamp in the appellate record. FLAT OUT LIE. If they broke the rule and went outside the record on appeal, to the full lower court record, they got it wrong. Our October 19, 2012 motion was clearly BEFORE the October 26, 2012 date-time stamp entry of the judgment of foreclosure and sale. There you have it, the appellate court made up a fact, or if they broke a rule, got a simple order of dates wrong to bury us. They lied or broke the rules, and failed 5th grade math... and Valerie Brathwaite Nelson signed off. That’s not justice—it’s theft.

The Trap: The plaintiff’s documents prove our attorney’s role, the extensions of time to answer and the answer are on both the record on appeal and the full lower court record. There is no escaping them, Plaintiff failure to serve the attorney in those documents kills the case. The appeals court pretended those documents did not exist, dodging our win. But if our attorney wasn’t involved, we never interacted directly with Plaintiff, the Plaintiff’s 2009 motion— 16 months after our default, according to papers the Plaintiff filed with the court, came when the case was abandoned by 4 months. It only adds to the absurdity of the situation that the unserved on our attorney notice of motion cited inappropriate “CPLR 3215” law not meant to authorize first thing sought, a Judgment of Foreclosure, and no authorizing law cited for the second thing sought, an order of reference -- motion fatally flawed on its face. The appellate court screwed us to save a developer.

Schrödinger’s Trick: Our attorney’s role matters to save the plaintiff, doesn't matter to fuck us. Nice try, judges.

The Proof:

Why It Matters: The Lyceum was a Brooklyn cultural whirlwind —where the famous met the creative and industrious to add to the cultural fabric of THE BOROUGH, BROOKLYN!

Like the NEA, gutted by politics, the Lyceum’s gutted by judges who lie, led by an ethics chair who betrayed ethics. This is for every artist, dreamer, and community under attack. It is bigger than just the Brooklyn Lyceum. Procedural due process or BUST!

Our War Cry: Like ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS to ROCK-PAPER-SCISSORS-LIZARD-SPOCK, we rewrite the game: “Pound the facts if you gottem, pound the law if it works, pound the table if you got nothing—but if you’re the law, make shit up!”

Call to Action: This is war. Visit Art-Ocracy.org as a headquarters for the Brooklyn Lyceum fight that will, we hope, grow into a participatory cultural programming organization, an Art-Ocracy, and earn voting rights by highlighting this BULLSHIT!  Earn extra votes if you were a former artistic Lyceum denizen when you highlight this BULLSHIT.

Share this. Flood their inboxes. Scream for justice before we storm the courts. The NEA’s bleeding, the Lyceum’s burning, but neither of us are done.

When the facts (dates of papers, plaintiff’s papers) and law (service rules, abandonment) kill a foreclosure, the courts make shit up. Fuck that shit—stop them now.

FULL DISCLOSURE: We spoke a few times with opposing counsel, Glenn Patrick Warmuth, of Stim and Warmuth, and VP of Suffolk County Bar Association. He knows what a steaming pile this case is. At first he refused to admit that he still represented the Plaintiff. Then he refused our offer to meet to discuss mutual haircuts, rather than bloody to the death slog through the courts. We spoke a few times with Clerk of The Court, an attorney and M.I.T grad who knows October 19 is not after October 26, Darrell Joseph. He blew us off. We sent letters directly to the presiding judge, Judge Brathwaite Nelson, and the staff attorneys. The deputy clerk rejected them. We later complained and were given the phone number to the Presiding Judge Hector Lasalle's chambers. The person at that number gave us an email. We sent a summary to that email and the email was rejected by the clerk's office again, despite us seemingly raising the issues directly with the Presiding judge. Smells all around, no?

WHO THE HELL IS THE LYCEUM?  Formerly: Public Bath #7, staging ground for, among many others:

Fiona Apple, Yo La Tengo, Polyphonic Spree, Jen Chapin, Marc Ribot, MATA festival with Brooklyn Rider and the Knights Orchestra, the Wyos, leaving ikea, rocky: the musical workshop on way to broadway, All is Full of Love by Josh Walden, project: ground control musical, SwampKing ten minute play festival, Amanda Palmer, 7 years of a Charlie Brown Christmas for the masses, epic craft markets, comic-cons and mutt shows, the Ny-Neo Futurists’ Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, brooklyn underground film festival, asbury shorts of new york, brooklyn international film festival, epic dance parties by Gemini and Scorpio, Body Temple, and Reggae retro,moby dick: the sermon(which got a New yorker cartoon) and even our one fully produced production Michele Aldin’s 31 Bond which got a writeup pre-production in the NYTIMES.

LINK TO THIS VERSION: Art-Ocracy.org/lyceum-sane

LINK TO FULL RAGE VERSION: Art-Ocracy.org/lyceum-full-rage

Contact: Eric Richmond - Email: jafomaru@gmail.com
Phone: (646) 256-9613 - Website: Art-Ocracy.org - Date: May 16, 2025