Nov 22, 2009 10:37 am US/Eastern
Model: NYC Co-Op Voted Me Out For Marrying Doorman
NEW YORK (CBS) ―
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Christine Ambers and Angel Rotger are newlyweds, still basking in the glow of their July wedding, but they're not getting any presents from their co-op neighbors.
CBS
New York co-op boards can be famously picky about who they allow to buy an apartment, but now a woman is being thrown out of her home, and she says it's all because she fell in love with the doorman.
Christine Ambers and Angel Rotger are newlyweds, still basking in the glow of their July wedding – but they're not getting any presents from their co-op neighbors.
"They have voted us out," Ambers says.
The couple alleges it's blatant classism and racism since Ambers, the owner, fell in love with Rotger, a Hispanic doorman. He was fired once their affair was discovered.
"I was forewarned by management and other employees to stay away from her," Rotgers says.
"He is now married to a shareholder, and it has violated their social order and they don't like it," the couple's attorney, Josh Price, says.
Ambers, a hand, foot and leg model, has owned her first-floor, one-bedroom $300,000 home at 340 East 74th Street for six years. She pays $12,000 a year in common fees, but gets little for it since marrying.
"They don't announce my visitors, they don't announce my food deliveries, they don't help me out with cabs," Ambers says. "Sometimes we get our packages; sometimes we don't."
The new bride says things got so bad that Rotger was attacked by the superintendant's wife.
"She walked up to him, said 'no one likes you in this building,' and wacked him in the groin with her bag," Ambers says. "It was one of those big bags, with the hardware."
The couple says that, at this point, they'd be willing to leave the building, but they can't sell the apartment because of the poor condition of the floors. They say they've even offered to hand the apartment over for fair market value.
The co-op has had to fix Amber's floor after buckling from water leaks on three occasions, and the floors have again buckled, but this time there's been no repair. Ambers and Rotger have filed a $10 million dollar lawsuit for what they call discrimination – "due solely to his race, his socioeconomic status," Price says.
CBS 2 tried to ask fellow owners about the co-op feud, but none wished to comment.
The feud looks like it has a long court battle ahead.
CBS 2 put in calls to the building management's attorney, but they were not returned.
(© MMX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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