A Fort Lauderdale senior home under fire for removing all of its residents to convert into luxury apartments is now accused of fabricating evidence in a Broward County court case about the controversial evictions.
Oasis Living Quarters said in an emergency motion last week that it provided residents with a written notice in January informing them that they would have 45 days to leave, well before they were forced out in March. The motion included a copy of the alleged notice as evidence, along with an affidavit from an employee saying she knocked on residents’ doors and personally handed it to them.
But the attorney representing one of Oasis’ residents said in a motion Tuesday that such a notice not only never existed but was created after the fact “solely to defraud the court,” pointing to affidavits from several residents and family members, a state inspection report, and video footage of the chaotic March meeting where residents said Oasis’ administrator first informed them they would have to leave.
Oasis’ “allegations and attached exhibits must be viewed as an attempt willfully and knowingly to defraud the court with fabricated evidence,” wrote David Comras, the attorney who filed the original suit on behalf of his aunt, Rema Comras, who was a bedridden resident at Oasis.
Comras died on April 21, shortly after her family moved her out of the facility.
“The document listed as defendant’s exhibit ‘A’ is entirely fraudulent and its creation was meant solely to defraud the court,” David Comras’ motion continued. “At no time did any of the residents EVER receive such letter advising them that they had to vacate the premises.”
Comras is now seeking sanctions against the facility for the alleged fraud.
The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported earlier this week that Oasis is connected to a family of notorious New York landlords. Jay Podolsky, a convicted felon, and his son, Lee, began operating the facility in 2022 and regularly visited the premises. Over the last three years, conditions deteriorated such that many residents left of their own accord.
Last May, the facility, operating under the Podolskys and overseen by administrator Steven Gottlieb, forced all of the residents to move from the independent living side into assisted living with only a few days’ notice, telling them it was for renovations. That building is now Waterview luxury apartments.
Oasis was recently issued a stop-work order over doing construction without a permit. The apartment company also never registered as a business with the city of Fort Lauderdale, according to city officials. City spokeswoman Christine Portela told the Sun Sentinel on Wednesday that “the owner’s representative” had requested to meet with the building inspector to “discuss next steps to bring the property into compliance.”
Footage depicts tense meeting
On March 5, Gottlieb stood before a podium and announced to residents they would have to leave for “upgrades” before introducing them to representatives from three other senior facilities, according to several attendees, a Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration report, and video footage recorded by a meeting attendee and recently obtained by the Sun Sentinel.
Gottlieb later told the AHCA inspector that “he was not in a meeting, where Residents were told they had to leave, nor was he at the facility when other facility representatives were there doing a presentation,” according to the report.
Residents and employees told the Sun Sentinel and the inspector that the March meeting was the first time anyone had heard about their removal and that they had not received anything in writing, over a month after the Jan. 30 date on which Oasis is now alleging it provided the notice.
Several times in the March meeting, Gottlieb avoided telling residents they would be permanently removed at all, according to the footage. Asked several times for written notice, he repeatedly said that Oasis’ lawyers were working on it. He spent much of the meeting praising Oasis for offering residents three other facilities from which to choose.
“Management has decided they’re going to continue to do upgrades,” Gottlieb told residents, according to video footage of the meeting. “But that being said, they expect it to take 90 to 120 days. So, we were commissioned to speak to different communities that will be able to accept you guys as their long-term residents.”
AHCA later cited Oasis for not giving residents 45 days’ notice and for not helping them find a new home “in a manner that did not violate their freedom of choice.” One employee of a nearby senior living facility told the inspector that Gottlieb had informed them they would have to agree to pay Oasis a fee “for every patient they got from their facility,” according to the report. He said “such practice damages their industry, and he wanted nothing to do with it.”
According to video taken at the March meeting, Gottlieb was repeatedly questioned by residents about the details of their forced removal and when or if they could come back.
He reassured them that their upcoming expulsions would not be as abrupt as in May 2024, when residents said they were forced out of the building that is now Waterview apartments with a few days’ notice.
“Today is unlike May 6th. For May 6th, we said ‘thank you very much’ and moved you all to the other side and it happened instantaneously,” he said, according to the footage. “This will not happen at the same degree. This will take considerably more time as we’re not looking to rush anyone out the door tomorrow.”
“So, why don’t you just say you’re shutting down the place?” asked a woman in the audience at the meeting.
“That’s incorrect,” Gottlieb replied. “We’re not shutting down the place. We’re remodeling the entire community.”
“Is this in writing anywhere where we can actually read it, understand it?” another man asked.
“Those lawyers are currently crafting a letter that will be posted,” Gottlieb said. “But understand this, we’re not leaving you guys without a great option … You guys will actually be benefiting from this.”
“So are you going to close assisted living and memory care? It’s yes or no. We don’t care when. We want to know if you are closing,” the woman said.
“The answer is the building will be emptied out,” Gottlieb began, “As such — ”
“They’re closing!” the woman interjected.
“We’re not closing,” Gottlieb said. “That’s incorrect.”
Meeting attendees also repeatedly pressed Gottlieb about when residents would be required to leave.
“We are not forcing you out,” he said. “We are not saying this is the last day; we’re saying that we’ve created this relationship with these communities. If you want to move there sooner, great, if you want to move there in a reasonable period of time, that’s also great.”
“Define a reasonable period of time,” another attendee said.
Finally, after further pressure, Gottlieb said, “expectations are the end of March to the very beginning of April,” or about 30 days from the date of the meeting.
“Your presentation lacks a lot of empathy,” a man said.
“Trust me, it’s not a lack of empathy,” Gottlieb said later. “If I had a lack of empathy, I wouldn’t have had these relationships here today.”
‘A fraudulent document’
A Broward judge issued a temporary injunction halting the removal of Oasis’ residents following a hearing on April 2, saying it was “to prevent abuse of the at-risk population of Oasis Living Quarters.” Attorneys for Oasis did not attend the hearing.
In the emergency motion filed last week, Oasis’ attorney, Kevin Fabrikant, argued that Oasis was going through a “significant remodeling effort” and gave residents notice multiple times, beginning with the Jan. 30 notice as well as two notices of town hall meetings. He concluded that the court must vacate the injunction entirely, saying that the series of events leading up to it “shocks the conscience.”
A judge denied Fabrikant’s original motion last week because he had not conferred with Comras beforehand. Fabrikant re-filed the motion on Tuesday.
Fabrikant also filed sworn affidavits last week from three employees. In one, Oasis’ floor manager said that on Jan. 30 she knocked on each resident’s door, handed them the notice and explained what it was about, as well as taped the notices on each door, in elevators and common areas. She also said that she knocked on Rema Comras’ door and handed her nurse a notice.
In another affidavit, Oasis’ head nurse said that she had seen the 45 days’ notices taped to residents’ doors and in common areas.
The floor manager also said that she attended “both town hall meetings.” Fabrikant’s motion had also said Oasis held two meetings, one in February and one in March. According to Comras and seven affidavits from residents and family members attached to his motion, Oasis canceled the February meeting and had only one town hall meeting in March.
Comras’ motion called the affidavits on behalf of Oasis a “sham” and referenced footage from the meeting, questioning why residents would be so surprised about their “impending displacement” if they had all received notice in January. He described the January notice as “a fraudulent document” “which presumably did not exist at the time this injunctive relief was requested.”
All seven residents and family members stated in their affidavits that they had never seen any such notice, with several adding that the series of actions taken by Oasis had “negatively affected” their general health and caused them “mental distress.”
Gottlieb himself did not mention such a 45 days’ notice when an AHCA inspector asked him to in March, according to the report, which the motion also cites, instead providing a Feb. 7 letter about dining room improvements.
“We are pleased to announce that we will be making improvements to the facilities’ dining room, the kitchen area and corridors to enhance your overall experience,” the letter reads.
David Comras told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Wednesday that he had conferred with Fabrikant this week but they did not reach an agreement. Comras had been willing to agree to dissolve the injunction against Oasis, given that his aunt had since died and all of the residents except one had moved out, but he was not willing to vacate it.
“We felt it would basically say, ‘mea culpa, we filed it wrongfully, we’ll agree to vacate it’ as though it never happened,” Comras said, “which is something I just don’t morally agree with.”
Fabrikant did not return calls or emails Wednesday afternoon. He has not yet filed a response to Comras’ motion for sanctions.
Fabrikant’s motion had also argued that Rema Comras “voluntarily removed herself.” In his Tuesday motion, Comras denied this, saying he held Oasis responsible for her death.
“Rema Comras did not want to vacate the facility at any time, did not want to move in her medical conditions, and did not want to endure the worry and anxiety of having to move at the behest of defendant’s improper actions and failure to provide adequate notice and time,” he wrote. “As a matter of fact, the undersigned as well as other family members of Rema Comras firmly believe that her passing was directly related to defendant’s callous actions.”