Brain Injury Lawyer Blog

Date: 11/13/2008

By KAREN MATTHEWS
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) _ Federal prosecutors have filed a lawsuit against a co-op board over its rules for an autistic boy who needs a dog.

The lawsuit charges that the co-op board at the Townsend House, a 20-story building on Manhattan’s Upper East Side where 11-year-old Aaron Schein lives, violated the federal Fair Housing Act.

The sixth-grader told the New York Post he’s been “wanting a dog for a while.”

“The board is pretty strict,” he said. “They said I could have a dog, but then they put down billions of rules.”

According to the lawsuit, filed Wednesday by the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan, Aaron has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, a form of autism characterized by difficulty interacting socially, and has been prescribed a service dog.

The boy’s parents, Mark Schein and Maria Mostajo, wrote to Townsend House in January 2007 asking for an exception to the building’s strict no-pets rule.

Townsend House said the service dog could weigh 10 pounds at most, would have to be carried through common areas of the building and could not be left alone in their apartment for more than two hours.

The co-op board also said the family would have to get $1 million in liability insurance for the dog.

After Mark Schein, a managing director of the York Capital Management hedge fund, met with the board, it revised the weight limit to 25 pounds but refused to budge on the other restrictions.

Prosecutors say those restrictions don’t constitute reasonable accommodations under the Fair Housing Act.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages and an injunction against the co-op board’s conduct.

The building’s management company, Goodstein Management, declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Schein and Mostajo, a Bronx prosecutor, did not immediately return calls seeking comment Thursday.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.