A Black couple seeking to rent a home in Flushing, New York, is now suing the real estate agent and brokerage that offered to show it to them after receiving an overtly racist text mistakenly sent to them by the agent.
Lisa Renee Olaso, 53, and her fiancé Cyril Christopher, 51, a surgical technician, were relocating to New York because Olaso had landed a new managerial job with Delta Airlines based at Kennedy International Airport.
On June 20, they traveled from Delaware to see a home on 26th Avenue in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens in New York and followed the instructions of real estate broker Helen Tzelios, 61, to meet up outside the property.
As they got out of their car, Olaso said she received this text from Tzelios: “Ugh, they are black.”
Olaso, who now believes Tzelios meant to send the messages to the apartment owners, told her husband to get back in the car and texted the broker to explain why they no longer wanted to see the property.
Tzelios then began to explain that she had sent the message to them accidentally, and that she had made the alarming comment “because there had previously been problems at the residence and in the neighborhood involving Black people,” according to the racial discrimination lawsuit filed by the couple in the New York Supreme Court on Oct. 21 and obtained by Atlanta Black Star.
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The exchange shook up Olaso, and she immediately began to cry, according to an interview Christopher gave to Newsday. He said the news also shocked him.
“It rocked me to the core,” he said. “I had never faced racism like this before.”
At a news conference last week, Christopher said, “It’s like judging a book by its cover. You haven’t even read the book, and you already made a judgment call.”
Olaso told reporters through tears that the broker apologized and kept offering to show her more properties until she blocked her phone number.
“But it doesn’t change the pain. It doesn’t change the pain that you caused us this day,” she said. “This type of situation continues to happen, and it needs to stop.”
Their attorney, Kenneth Mollins, called the incident “about as blatant as they come … This is horrific.”
The lawsuit says the agent’s communications upset and humiliated Alaso and Christopher, who believed the agent disapproved of them because of their race.
It alleges violations of the Federal Fair Housing Act and New York State and New York City housing and human rights laws by Tzelios, Elliman Realty, and four owners of the property.
The defendants made statements in connection with the rental of a dwelling “indicating a preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, as understood by an ordinary listener,” the complaint says.
They seek a jury trial to determine compensatory and punitive damages for the denial of their civil rights and for their humiliation and emotional distress, as well as injunctive relief, “if warranted.”
The property owners were named as defendants because “people don’t generally send a message saying, ‘Ugh, they’re Black’ unless the person they’re sending that to on the other end understands why that’s a problem. There must have been a conversation prior to that message,” Mollins told Newsday.
He said the plaintiffs named Douglas Elliman Realty because Tzelios’ actions reflect on the company, regardless of whether it knew about them or denies responsibility.
The lawsuit says the owners are responsible “by the principles of agency and vicarious liability.”
None of the defendants have yet filed a response to the lawsuit in court. They have up to 30 days after receiving the complaint and summons to respond.
Last week, a Douglas Elliman spokesperson said the company learned of the couple’s alleged experience only after receiving the lawsuit on Thursday and severed its contractual relationship with Tzelios, an independent contractor, within an hour.
“Douglas Elliman has a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination of any kind, and the agent is no longer with the company,” the statement said.
Tzelios had been working for Elliman Real Estate since 2000, serving sections of Queens County as well as the North Shore of Long Island, according to her profile on the realtor.com website.
A New York Department of State spokesperson told Newsday that Tzelios held a real estate license but had no firm sponsoring her, which meant she could not legally work as a real estate salesperson.
Tzelios did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Atlanta Black Star or from other news organizations.
Elaine Gross, president of ERASE Racism, a civil rights organization based on the North Shore of Long Island, said the text message appeared to violate federal and state housing laws.
“You’re not supposed to discriminate against people because of their perceived race,” she said. “It so happened that (Olaso) got the text; otherwise, you’d have the same story that usually happens: they might have shown her the unit, but she never would have gotten that unit.”
The couple has since relocated to Commack, New York, a hamlet on Long Island in Suffolk County, where Olaso said they are now “extremely happy.”
“It restored a lot of my faith in New Yorkers,” Christopher said.
