FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE May 16, 2025
NEA Butchered by Gutless Politicians, Lyceum Murdered by Lying Appellate Judges
The National Endowment for the Arts is bleeding out, gutted by culture-hating suits. The Brooklyn Lyceum is dying in a similar slaughter—torched by judges who spewed vile lies to foreclose Brooklyn’s soul. Four judges, a century of so-called wisdom, led by Valerie Brathwaite Nelson, The New York State Court System’s Ethics Commission chair turned ethics fraud, pissed on our airtight defense to gift the Lyceum to a greedy developer. We’re raging to save the stage where poets bled fire, dancers defied gravity, and Brooklyn roared.
Join us to burn this scandal to the ground and resurrect our home.
The Betrayal: In 2018, the Appellate Division, Second Department, tried to bury the Lyceum with a foreclosure so crooked it stinks of corruption. We’re fighting back with a killshot argument, exposing lies so disgusting they’ll choke you with rage. These judges didn’t just screw us—they rigged the whole damn game.
The Gutting of Justice: At oral argument, we stood up and smashed them: the plaintiff never sent a single paper to our attorney, a direct middle finger to the court’s right to rule. Plaintiff’s own documents—extensions to answer, a served answer—proving our attorney was in the fight, our champion, our advocate, so every scrap of paper had to go to them. Their service records? Not one fucking trace of our attorney. That obliterates the foreclosure, end of story. The law screams they had to tackle this jurisdictional gut-punch first. Instead, they strutted their “reputation” and “thoroughness,” then shat on justice. Here’s their smug brag 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 betrayal. Ethics? She’s a goddamn disgrace.
The Vile Lie: To slaughter the Lyceum, the appeals court claimed our October 19, 2012, motion was “too late” because it came after the October 26, 2012, foreclosure judgment. They didn’t cite a single date, because the Judgment entry date ain’t in the 500-page appeal record. THE COURT SPEWED A FUCKING LIE, bound by rules to stick to that record. No entry date-time stamp, no nothing. FLAT-OUT FRAUD. If they cheated and peeked at the lower court record, they still fucked it up—our October 19 motion was BEFORE October 26. They flunked basic reality, and Valerie Brathwaite Nelson waved it through. That’s not justice—it’s a developer’s wet dream.
The Trap: Plaintiff’s documents scream our attorney’s role—extensions, answer, all in use by the lower court. No dodging it: their failure to serve our attorney torches the case. The appeals court played dumb, pretending those papers vanished, to spit on our win. But if our attorney wasn’t involved, we never dealt directly with the plaintiff, and their 2009 motion—16 months after our default, according to the papers Plaintiff filed with the court, had become a rotting corpse of a case—was abandoned by 4 months. That motion? A steaming pile, citing “CPLR 3215” (wrong for judgment of foreclosure) and no law for an order of reference, unserved on our attorney, dead on arrival. The court fucked us to prop up a developer.
Schrödinger’s Betrayal: Our attorney’s real to save the plaintiff, fake to bury us. Nice try, you corrupt bastards.
The Proof:
- Plaintiff’s Fuck-Up: Their affirmation admits our attorney’s extensions and answer. Service records? Zilch to our attorney, a case-killing stab.
- 2009 Motion Shitshow: October 26, 2009, 16 months after June 16, 2008, default, citing “CPLR 3215” (bullshit) and no law for an order of reference and premised on a non-existent affirmation. Pure garbage.
- Court’s Stinking Lies: Claiming we moved too late without dates, one not in the record, a LIE, or botching basic math if they cheated outside it. Claiming plaintiff moved under RPAPL 1321, which ain’t in any motion or decision, and dodging our attorney service argument without addressing the jurisdictional argument that they never served papers on our attorney, which would kill the motion, whether RPAPL 1321 was cited or not. UTTER BULLSHIT! They lied, doubled down, and Valerie Brathwaite Nelson signed the death warrant.
Why It Matters: The Lyceum was Brooklyn’s fucking heartbeat—where legends met dreamers, poets spit fire, and neighbors became blood. Like the NEA, hacked apart by political cowards, the Lyceum’s being gutted by judges who lie, led by an ethics chair who’d sell her soul for a developer’s dime. This is war for every artist, rebel, and community under siege. Procedural due process or we take it down!
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 a fucking call to cultural arms. Storm Art-Ocracy.org, our war room to rebuild the Lyceum into a cultural juggernaut where you earn votes by screaming this BULLSHIT to the skies! Earn extra votes if you were a former artistic Lyceum denizen when you highlight this BULLSHIT.
Shove this scandal in their faces, flood their inboxes, howl in the streets before we invade the courts. The NEA’s dying, the Lyceum’s burning, but we’re not fucking done. When facts (dates, plaintiff’s papers) and law (service, abandonment) slaughter a foreclosure, the courts make shit up. Fuck that shit—smash this now!
FULL DISCLOSURE: We called opposing counsel, Glenn Patrick Warmuth, of Stim and Warmuth -and Suffolk County Bar Association VP, who knows this case is a rotting corpse. He dodged, first denying he repped the plaintiff, then spitting on our offer for mutual haircuts over a “bloody to the death” court slog. We hounded Darrell Joseph,lawyer and M.I.T-grad clerk who knows October 19 ain’t after October 26, but the gatekeeper blew us off. We fired letters at Valerie Brathwaite Nelson and her staff attorneys—deputy clerk trashed them. We got Hector Lasalle’s chambers’ number, sent a summary to his email, and the clerk’s office spiked it again, even after we went straight to the presiding judge. This system’s rotten to the core, a stinking cover-up for a developer’s greed. Smells like bullshit, 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-full-rage
LINK TO SANE VERSION: Art-Ocracy.org/lyceum-sane
Contact: Eric Richmond - Email: jafomaru@gmail.com
Phone: (646) 256-9613 - Website: Art-Ocracy.org - Date: May 16, 2025