A year after the “Hipster Grifter” resurfaced on the New York scene, she has re-resurfaced.
Kari Ferrell Ensor, who scammed her way through the city in 2009 and captivated the blogosphere, has now been sued for unpaid rent.
According to court papers, Ensor has lived for two years at the Denizen in Bushwick, an enormous 2017 two-building complex brimming with amenities.
Papers were served upon “Elliot Doe,” described as a bald white man, at the subject apartment. On Instagram, Ensor says she has been married for 12 years to her bald, bearded husband, Elliot Ensor.
The monthly rent is $4,973.50, according to Supreme Court filings by the Denizen’s lawyer, Peter A. Rose, with rent allegedly unpaid since at least December.
Rose did not return calls for comment, nor did Ensor reply to messages left on a number listed for Elliot Ensor or a message left via her Instagram page, @hotdoghandjobs.
Ensor, whose decolletage sports a large phoenix tattoo, was profiled in 2009 by Doree Shafrir in the Observer, with a personality described as “funny, charming, adorable.” The piece detailed her escapades borrowing money from assorted boyfriends and neglecting to pay it back. She told some people that she was pregnant and others that she was dying of cancer.
People sometimes assumed her inconsistencies were mistakes. When she wasn’t at the hospital where she said she was, for example, they figured she had been transferred.
Ensor was adopted from South Korea by a couple in Utah who later divorced, the Observer reported. In 2008, she was one of Salt Lake City’s most wanted fugitives, with “$60,000 in warrants including forgery, bad checks and retail theft.” She later spent a few months in jail in Utah.
Last year, she was again in the news, saying she would be working on a TV series with Mindy Kaling and a book, which could not be verified.
In court papers, Ensor’s lawyer, Jennifer Addonizio Rozen, claimed Ensor has paid “all or a part of the rent,” specifically through March 2023, when the landlord filed court papers.
Rozen called the legal action a “fraudulent non-payment proceeding . . . in retaliation for [Ensor’s] good faith participation in a Tenant’s Association” for the complex, which has a full-time doorman, two street addresses and more than 900 units.
Jennifer Rozen did not return messages for comment.
Rozen further claimed the landlord “concealed the legal rent amount” by listing the rent as $4,900 — not $4,973.50 — in city documents that were “wholly unreliable” and “incomplete.”
Because the Denizen has a 421-a tax abatement and 20% of its units are affordable, the Ensors’ apartment is rent-stabilized. Due to the “rent overcharge [that] was collected intentionally,” Rozen is seeking treble damages, interest and lawyer fees for Ensor, along with a rent reduction due to Ensor’s “good faith complaints” about conditions of disrepair.
These conditions include mold in the bathroom, assorted instances of flooding from rain or a broken pipe, inadequate bathroom ventilation, a defective dishwasher, an inoperable Bluetooth speaker, an inoperable buzzer system, electrical fires on the roof and dog waste everywhere.
Ensor has “sought protection from the City’s agencies to inspect conditions of disrepair at the subject premises,” according to Rozen’s documents.
The city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, however, has no record of such conditions at the subject premises.
“No complaints were filed by this tenant,” a spokesperson wrote. “We encourage all New Yorkers to call 311 if your landlord fails to maintain your building because HPD takes all complaints about unsafe and unhealthy conditions very seriously.”
The FDNY also has no records indicating electrical fires on the roof, according to a department spokesperson.
