Adelheid (Heidi) O'Brien

O’Brien met with two testers, one white and one Black, seeking $400,000 homes near Bay Shore. The state accused her of discrimination for telling the white tester to avoid homes in the Brentwood school district, but not giving the same advice to the Black tester. The administrative law judge wrote that the advice was “only one singular and lonely comment” in a longer conversation. There was not enough evidence of steering to find that she discriminated, the judge ruled. However, he wrote that agents are “required” by the industry's codes of ethics to recommend homes “without consideration of school district so as to avoid the infiltration of actual or implicit bias into the decision-making process.” Her discussion of schools merited a $500 fine, he wrote. The Department of State appealed, arguing that O’Brien “steered” the white buyer away from Brentwood, which the agency argued is discriminatory. The appeals officer did not find evidence of discrimination but let the $500 fine for the school comment stand. O'Brien did not respond to requests for comment.