Federal prosecutors won their motion to compel the deposition of an attorney in an ongoing Federal Housing Act case Friday, allowing them to ask a court-narrowed set of questions about a landlord's efforts to keep a chronically ill tenant from acquiring an emotion support dog in his rent controlled Upper East Side apartment.

Gregory Reich has end-stage renal disease and depression, and twice requested permission from his landlords at 111 E. 88th St. for permission to keep an emotion support dog in his home. Both requests were accompanied by medical support, with one therapist stating in a letter that denying his request would mean a serious threat to Reich's health and life.

Reich claimed the defendants made unduly burdensome and unreasonable requests under the FHA to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including providing the results of a battery of tests such as an MRI and mental health therapist session notes. HUD agreed with Reich that the defendant had constructively denied his request for reasonable accommodation, and decided to pursue litigation.

In her order, U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine Parker of the Southern District of New York found that the attorney for the landlord, private attorney Steven Sieratzki, was not covered under attorney-client privilege. He, along with his client's representative, Robert Ernstoff, were the two people who received and participated in reviewing and responding to Reich's accommodation requests.

As Parker noted, Ernstoff testified during deposition that he was unable to tell prosecutors what the rationale was for requesting the additional information from Reich. As the letter requesting the material was written and made by Sieratzki, prosecutors would have to talk to him. The attorney also would be able to answer how much info the defendants already had in their possession at the time the request was made, Ernstoff testified.

Parker called the request made of Reich the heart of the defense against the FHA violation claims. Since Sieratzki arguably operated not as Ernstoff's attorney but rather as a co-decision-maker in a business dealing, privilege claims have been waived regarding the specific questions at issue.

The court, noting its mindfulness towards the presumption favoring attorney depositions and the “complexities that arise from questioning defense counsel,” proscribed a number of limits on the government's questioning to key topics, such as what medical information was previously known and whether the defendant would concede that any of the additional information was “extraneous.”

A spokeswoman for HUD did not return a request for comment. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan, which is handling the case, declined to comment.

Sieratzki did not respond to a request for comment.

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