Vel\u00e1zquez promptly fired the party\u2019s longtime lawyers, Anthony Genovesi and Amy Marion, and hired Margarita L\u00f3pez Torres, Jason A. Ota\u00f1o, and Matthew J. Chach\u00e8re to represent the party in a new lawsuit filed by party reformer Julio Pe\u00f1a III.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Genovesi and Marion continued to file court documents claiming to represent Vel\u00e1zquez, despite multiple letters asking them to stop.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"lawyers](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-9.jpg\")
Congresswoman Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s lawyers Jason A. Ota\u00f1o, Margarita L\u00f3pez Torres and Matthew J. Chach\u00e8re at Tuesday\u2019s hearing. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n
On Sunday night, Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies held a meeting<\/a> \u2014 against court orders \u2014 where they claim to have elected Nikki Lucas as the new chair of the Brooklyn Democratic Party.\u00a0<\/p>\n It prompted a flurry of legal activity. Lawyers representing Pe\u00f1a immediately filed paperwork asking Lewis to consider whether Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies in contempt of court.\u00a0<\/p>\n Genovesi, meanwhile, moved to have Torres, Otan\u00f5 and Chach\u00e8re removed, claiming Lucas had authorized he and his firm, Abrams Fensterman, to take over.\u00a0 In a cease and desist addressed to the trio, Lucas identified herself as the \u201cduly elected Chair\u201d of the party\u2019s executive committee, and said their representation was \u201cterminated effective immediately.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n At a hearing on Tuesday, Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Peter Sweeney was set to hear arguments over Pe\u00f1a\u2019s suit, which is seeking a declaratory judgement that the since-voided bylaws cannot be used; as well as a motion to intervene filed by Bichotte Hermelyn, Lucas and two other party members seeking to join the suit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vel\u00e1zquez and Bichotte Hermelyn \u2014 who has so far been absent from court proceedings surrounding the controversy \u2014 were both present in the courtroom. Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s original lawyers sat at the counsel table, before the judge, while Genovesi and Marion sat public gallery beside Bichotte Hermelyn.\u00a0<\/p>\n Otan\u00f5 immediately asked to discuss the matter of who is legally authorized to represent Vel\u00e1zquez and the party. The Oct. 4 vote to elect Lucas, he said, was \u201cin direct opposition\u201d of a temporary restraining order handed down by Lewis last week, which is still in effect. As such, he added, the party \u201ccannot be said to have elected a new chair.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe do not believe Lucas or Genovesi have the right to fire us,\u201d Otan\u00f5 said, adding that Genovesi\u2019s claim that he, Torres and Chach\u00e8re do not represent Vel\u00e1zquez and the party \u201crests entirely in fiction.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies had repeatedly claimed that the Oct. 4 meeting was a \u201cmeeting of members of the executive committee,\u201d not a \u201cmeeting of the executive committee.\u201d In court Tuesday, Genovesi claimed the TRO only applied to the executive committee \u2014 which is not yet organized, since there hasn\u2019t been a meeting \u2014 not the \u201cmembers of the unorganized committee,\u201d seeming to imply that the meeting and Lucas\u2019 election were allowed.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re moving to disqualify them on the grounds that the chair of the executive committee has terminated their service,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vel\u00e1zquez, in her position as county committee chair, does not have authority over anything outside county committee, Genovesi said, and cannot make decisions on the party\u2019s legal counsel.<\/p>\n Sweeney ultimately opted to hear arguments on the reformers\u2019 lawsuit and Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s request to intervene.<\/p>\n Reformers seek to officially nullify amended bylaws <\/p>\n Pe\u00f1a\u2019s lawsuit, filed last week, seeks a declaratory judgement on the party\u2019s recently-adopted (and more recently nullified) bylaws. The party\u2019s executive committee, which is responsible for electing a party chair, is comprised of the 42 elected district leaders from across the borough. In the June primary, party reformers aligned with New Kings Democrats won enough district leader seats to oust Bichotte Hermelyn \u2014 the group\u2019s longtime goal \u2014 and elect Pe\u00f1a.<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn in August introduced a series of bylaw amendments that expanded the size of the executive committee significantly, and passed the amendments at a last-minute meeting of the outgoing executive committee, making the reformers\u2019 majority irrelevant. The bylaws were passed in a last-minute meeting of the outgoing executive committee, including a number of members who had not won re-election.\u00a0<\/p>\n Reformers sued, and a Brooklyn Supreme Court judge ruled<\/a> the new rules \u201cmust be declared a nullity,\u201d as the outgoing members of the committee no longer had authority to vote on significant changes, per election law and existing party bylaws. The party appealed, and an appellate judge issued a stay on the lower court\u2019s ruling. In the meantime, the county committee organizational meeting<\/a> on Sept. 23 went ahead under the amended bylaws, and dozens of new executive committee members were selected. During that meeting, the committee also voted to ratify the party\u2019s rules. (At the hearing Tuesday, Sweeney said it was \u201csilly\u201d that the appellate court had allowed the Sept. 23 organizational meeting to go on under the August rules.)<\/p>\n Days later, the appellate court ruled against Bichotte Hermelyn, affirming the Supreme Court decision to toss the amended bylaws. The decision came hours before the executive committee meeting where a new party chair would be elected, and reformers immediately filed the new lawsuit to stop it.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re afraid that the current party establishment may say, \u2018Oh, well we passed those amendments again at the county committee meeting,\u2019 and that\u2019s not true,\u201d New Kings Democrats president Tony Melone told Brooklyn Paper at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n The suit is seeking a declaratory judgement that the Sept. 23 meeting \u201cdid not validly independently ratify or adopt the specific amendments\u201d passed in August and that actions taken regarding votes and rules at the meeting are \u201cnull and void.\u201d<\/p>\n Last week, the court approved a temporary restraining order blocking the party or anyone \u201cacting in concert\u201d from electing a new chair until after a decision on the suit has been made.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t have an executive committee meeting without knowing who the members are,\u201d said Mark Hanna, a lawyer for the reformers and a longtime district leader himself. \u201c[We want to know] whether the vote of the county committee on rules adopted rules that are void, or if they have an effect, or if they were amendments, because it\u2019s unclear. So we want to have surety before we move forward because unlike some folks we prefer to do things properly.\u201d<\/p>\n In court on Tuesday, Hanna argued that the party hadn\u2019t followed the proper steps to approve the amended bylaws at the Sept. 23 meeting. They did not distribute the new rules to the county committee to be considered individually, he said, or show them on the screen before the vote. Most people never saw the rules at all, and those who did receive written notice about them received it in the mail after the meeting.\u00a0<\/p>\n Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s lawyers, did not argue against the movement, and agreed the bylaws were not validly adopted.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Genovesi \u2014 speaking from the gallery \u2014 said the county committee did not vote on the rule amendments, only to formally adopt rules already amended by the executive committee in August. As such, he contended that the party was not required to send written notice to the entire county committee or present them for individual consideration.<\/p>\n Genovesi also argued that the court orders had only voided the vote where the amended rules were adopted, not the rules themselves, and that they should be allowed to stay in place.\u00a0<\/p>\n He accused Vel\u00e1zquez of \u201ccolluding\u201d with Pe\u00f1a and the reformers, and acting against the will of the county committee. He and Bichotte Hermelyn filed the order to intervene after receiving the TRO and court order that said Vel\u00e1zquez was the interim head of the party, he explained. That was also why they moved forward with the vote to elect Lucas on Sunday, in apparent violation of the TRO.<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn, Lucas seek to join lawsuit<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re all set \u2014 which is why became so important to have meeting on Sunday \u2014 they\u2019re all set to collaborate with Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez and wipe out parts of [the county party] they don\u2019t like,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn, Lucas and the other proposed invervenors have a right to join the case because they should have been named in the reformers\u2019 lawsuit as individual members of the executive committee, Genovesi claimed. He had used a similar argument to justify the Oct. 4 meeting, claiming that since the participants were not individually named in the TRO, they were not bound by its restraints.\u00a0<\/p>\n The contempt orders filed against Bichotte Hermelyn and her allies prove that they should have been named in the initial suit, Genovesi claimed.<\/p>\n Sweeney asked Hanna to explain why Genovesi should not be allowed to join the case.<\/p>\n \u201cCertainly he represents an interest,\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe not county committee, but that\u2019s beside the point.\u201d<\/p>\n Hanna argued that prior case law requires the executive committee to be noticed, not its individual members. The executive committee is a \u201ccreature of\u201d the county committee, he said, and is currently an \u201cunincorporated assortment of people.\u201d Vel\u00e1zquez is named in the suit because only she has the authority to convene the executive committee, he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn\u2019s basis for intervening, Hanna added, is based on the Oct. 4 meeting, which violated the TRO. That presents a new question, he said, of whether the meeting was valid \u2014 especially because it was run under the voided rules, and dozens of non-district leaders took part in the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Arguments stalled by question of legal representation<\/p>\n After more than an hour of arguments, Sweeney ended the hearing. He did not hear full arguments on the motion to dismiss Vel\u00e1zquez\u2019s lawyers, and ordered the legal teams to return to court on Oct. 13 for a hearing on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n Until that issue is decided, Hanna said, Sweeney is unlikely to take action on the arguments he heard Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThey can\u2019t do that because it\u2019s not clear who has the right to even put in opposition to what we wrote,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re kind of stuck, now, for a week.\u201d<\/p>\n Hanna asked if Sweeney could extend the TRO to prevent the new executive committee from taking further action, but Genovesi objected. As a result, Hanna said, they may file a new petition.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt best, if they were not violating the court order, it means their meeting was a nullity, it was a meeting of members of the caucus of the executive committee and their friends to talk about what they would like to happen, but it had no legal effect,\u201d explained his co-counsel, Howard Graubard. \u201cIn order for it to have any legal effect, they would have to be violating the temporary restraining order of which they are in contempt.\u201d<\/p>\n Bichotte Hermelyn declined to comment as she exited the courtroom and was served with the contempt of court papers, directing questions to Marion. <\/p>\n Asked about the restraining order, Marion doubled down that it did not apply to her client, who she said had been denied entry to the courtroom during a brief hearing last week.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were denied the right to be heard, she wasn\u2019t even allowed in \u2026 It\u2019s not an argument, it\u2019s the constitution, and it\u2019s the due process upon which the democratic republic is based,\u201d she said. \u201cJudge Lewis already ruled, she\u2019s not even entitled to get notice of a proceeding. So you can\u2019t show up, you can\u2019t get noticed, but then you can be prosecuted for contempt. It\u2019s really incredible.\u201d<\/p>\n Lucas, who arrived in the courthouse after the hearing had concluded, also declined to comment, ignoring reporters\u2019 questions about the case and the near future of the party. The midterm elections are less than a month away, and several Democrats in southern Brooklyn are trying to flip state Assembly and Senate seats currently held by Republicans. The county party is usually charged with supporting those candidates, but it\u2019s unclear how the ongoing court cases and confusion over party leadership has impacted those efforts.\u00a0<\/p>\n A hearing on the contempt of court order has been scheduled for Oct. 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal battle over who, exactly, is in charge of the Brooklyn Democratic Party cannot continue until a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367068,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[134061,135809,135810,98,18390,100,99,10916,54528,128459,17200,2803,416,124481,128461,9340,2148,126360,10597,130034,9,24,12,370,135811,63,8004,135812,135813,128462,135814,87,17961],"class_list":["post-367067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-amended-rules","tag-anthony-genovese","tag-authorization","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-democratic-party","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brooklyn-supreme-court","tag-brooklyn-dems","tag-bylaws","tag-chair","tag-court","tag-elections","tag-executive-committee","tag-howard-graubard","tag-lawyers","tag-legal-representation","tag-mark-hanna","tag-meeting","tag-new-kings-democrats","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nikki-lucas","tag-nyc","tag-nydia-velazquez","tag-party-bylaws","tag-party-chair","tag-paul-newell","tag-peter-sweeney","tag-politics","tag-rodneyse-bichotte-hermelyn"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367068"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"nydia](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-3.jpg\")
U.S. Rep. Nydia Vel\u00e1zquez is the county committee chair and interim head of the party, a judge declared last week. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-19.jpg\")
Bichotte Hermelyn introduced a series of bylaw amendments in August, sparking a string of legal battles. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-17.jpg\")
Lawyers Paul Newell, Mark Hanna, and Howard Graubard, who represent Pe\u00f1a and the reformers. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-16.jpg\")
Genovesi argued that Bichotte Hermelyn should be able to intervene in the case. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-20.jpg\")
Adam Davis served Bichotte Hermelyn with a contempt order as she exited the hearing. Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n![\"nikki](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/CourtHearing_KingsCountyDemocrats_100626-26.jpg\")
Assembly Member Nikki Lucas, who the party say is the new chair, arrived in the courthouse after the hearing had ended.Photo by Gabriele Holtermann<\/p>\n