Landlords: Woman with aliases refusing to pay rent

Ayn Stern has had many legal issues under various names

A woman with a string of aliases and a history of fraud allegations in New Mexico appears to be facing new accusations from two landlords who say she has refused to pay rent.

An attorney wrote in a motion filed Wednesday in state District Court that a woman who recently rented homes in the area under the names Ann Werner and Ann Warner is Ayn Stern, a “person who has multiple aliases and [had] multiple encounters with the justice system” in New Mexico a few years ago.

Attorney Ana Garner is representing Gilbert Jimenez, 74, of Tesuque, who tried to evict the woman he knew as Ann Werner. The woman is seeking a restraining order in a counterclaim that accuses Jimenez of anti-Semitism and harassment.

“This multiple alias person has been the subject of many lawsuits establishing a long criminal history of defrauding people, including desperate homeowners in foreclosure and landlords,” Garner wrote in the motion filed Wednesday.

“Ann Werner aka Ayn Stern and more than a dozen other aliases, has conned many people throughout her life,” Garner said.

Her motion asks the court to dismiss Werner’s claims against Jimenez.

Garner included photographs, newspaper articles and a list of aliases tying Jimenez’s tenant with Stern, who faced a series of complaints in the Santa Fe area between 2011 and 2014.

A woman who answered a call to a phone number listed for Ann Werner

on court documents declined to discuss the case. She asked for written questions via text. She did not respond to them.

A New Mexico judge issued an order in 2015 barring Ayn Stern from posing as an attorney and charging for legal services. The following year, she was arrested in upstate New York on suspicion of posing as a federal official.

More than two decades ago, she was convicted of attempting to hire a hit man in New Jersey.

According to court documents and previous news reports, Ayn Stern went by the name Ayn Warriner in 1997, when a New Jersey judge sentenced her to eight years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill one man and castrate and remove the tongue of another.

Her attorney tried to convince a judge to admit her to an inmate mental health facility instead of prison, according to The Record, a newspaper in Bergen County, N.J. It’s unclear what became of the effort.

Stern was accused in more recent years of defrauding numerous residents of Northern New Mexico by posing as a foreclosure attorney and securing leases for homes and then refusing to make payments.

Six plaintiffs filed a complaint against Stern — also naming her as Ayn Lev and Onya Levie — in state District Court in Santa Fe in 2011, saying they had collectively paid her nearly $70,000 to help them fight foreclosure proceedings. The complaint said she “provided little to no service” and refused to return their legal documents.

Former landlords sued her seeking unpaid rent in 2011, 2013 and 2014.

But several of those cases were stalled when Stern filed for bankruptcy.

Court records show she had a pattern of dragging out legal proceeding by recusing judges from cases, filing counterclaims and having cases improperly transferred to federal court.

U.S. District Judge Christina Armijo wrote in an order in 2012 sending a case back to state court that “Stern is a frequent frivolous filer.”

The state Attorney General’s Office in 2014 filed a complaint against Stern — and her various aliases, including Ayn Warriner, Ann F. Warriner, Ayn Fleitcher, Onya Leive and Frances Ayn Stern — that accused her of violations of the state’s Unfair Practices Act and foreclosure fraud.

District Judge Raymond Ortiz ruled against Stern in 2015, barring her from offering to help people resolve foreclosure proceedings for money.

Less than a year later, she was arrested in Whitehall, N.Y., following an altercation with a shopkeeper in which she was accused of falsely identifying herself as a representative of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

An officer from the Whitehall Police Department said at the time she had used the name Danby Flatcher.

She was indicted under 14 aliases and charged with felony counts, including forgery. A computerized fingerprint check identified her as Ayn Stern, according to the Glen Falls, N.Y.based Post-Star newspaper.

She spent eight months in jail awaiting trial before the the charges were dismissed. Her attorney had argued there were procedural issues with the grand jury’s investigation, according to the Post-Star.

She returned to New Mexico as early as November 2019, said Andy Lopez, a former chief financial officer for Las Clinicas del Norte, who said he rented a home in El Rito to her that month. The tenant, who called herself Ann Warner, stayed through most of January but only paid partial rent for one month, he said in a recent interview.

He filed a petition in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court in December, accusing her of failing to pay rent and seeking an eviction.

Jimenez said the woman he knows by the names Ann Werner and Onya Werner began renting a two-bedroom apartment above his home in Tesuque in January.

She initially wired him $2,600 — first and last month’s rent, plus a $200 deposit — he said.

But soon after she moved in, Jimenez said, the woman accused him of stealing from her and made other troubling comments. He decided he no longer wanted her living in his unit.

He told the woman he would prorate her last month’s rent if she found a new place, Jimenez said, but she stayed through March and into April without giving him more money.

Jimenez filed a petition for restitution against her April 6, but Santa Fe County Magistrate John Rysanek dismissed it April 20. Jimenez said the judge ruled he didn’t have a written rental agreement.

Ann Werner filed a complaint for a restraining order against Jimenez on April 15, accusing him and several neighbors of subjecting her to hate crimes.

She says in the complaint she has been “ruthlessly, and violently victimized and targeted” by Jimenez “because of his fanatical, psychotic Hatred of Jews.” She also accuses him of failing to complete repairs to the unit and allowing dangerous conditions to persist.

Jimenez denies those claims. “She’s like a professional squatter,” said Lopez, who is retired and lives in Las Cruces. “She knows landlord-tenant law pretty well.”