‘Rent-dodger’ evicted after 3-year ordeal
The West Village “grifter” who lived rent-free for three years in one of New York City’s priciest neighborhoods, partly by exploiting the eviction moratorium, has been given the boot.
Kate Gladstone, who also uses the name Katherine Klein, was evicted from owners Valentina Bajada and Heidi Russell’s two-bedroom Barrow Street pad Thursday in an hourslong spectacle that attracted a small crowd of workers and neighbors.
The saga began in June 2019, when Gladstone moved in with her child, paying $2,000 for a room in the apartment on a month-tomonth basis. Similar apartments in the neighborhood can rent for nearly $7,000 and up.
Almost as soon as Gladstone moved in, Russell asked her to leave so she could give the spare room to her own mother, who needed surgery.
But Gladstone refused to budge and stopped paying, according to court records.
Russell went to court to oust Gladstone in December 2019, alleging in legal papers that the woman took over the living room, bathroom and kitchen, wrote “bizarre messages directly on the walls,” removed smoke detectors, and accused her of stealing.
Gladstone eventually agreed to leave by March 31, 2020, but got a reprieve when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo issued the COVID-19 eviction moratorium.
In August 2020, a desperate Russell, who spent days wandering the streets with her poodle to avoid Gladstone, sued to get her out, prompting a front-page story in The Post.
Gladstone’s face was plastered on posters around the neighborhood with the phrase “# West Village G rift er” and a warning to other residents to “please alert your neighbors.”
Russell tried to change the locks when Gladstone left for a few weeks one summer, only to have a Housing Court judge order her to let the freeloading tenant return.
Case paused
By July 2021, the court green-lit a warrant to evict Gladstone, but required a status conference first. Gladstone claimed financial hardship, which paused the case for months. In March, Gladstone filed a state Emergency Rental Assistance Program application, which again halted the eviction effort.
On Aug. 5, free of pandemic rules that tied the court’s hands and with Gladstone’s ERAP bid denied, Housing Court Judge Evon M. Asforis ordered the eviction to go forward, noting Gladstone had made life “unbearable” for Russell.
In her three years living there, Gladstone — who has a pending 2019 criminal case for forgery and grand larceny after allegedly stealing an ex’s credit card to pay for hotel rooms — paid only a single month’s rent. It’s the third West Village home she has been accused of squatting in over the years.
On Thursday, an hour before city Marshal Robert Renzulli arrived with a locksmith to enforce the 10 a.m. eviction, Gladstone sneaked out the building’s back exit, ignoring questions from The Post.
Renzulli entered the apartment to find Gladstone, 46, had left behind her teen daughter and tiny dog as she ostensibly sought yet another reprieve from the courts.
NYPD officers then warned Gladstone to come back for her daughter. Eventually, she returned, shielding her face and refusing to answer questions.
It is not clear if the Thursday eviction is the final chapter: Gladstone is due in court Monday as she again appeals to get back in.
Her lawyer didn’t respond to a message.