Feds sue Woodbury co-op over dog ruling

Federal prosecutors sued a Woodbury senior citizens complex for discrimination Tuesday, saying it allegedly refused to allow a seriously ill elderly woman to keep a small "comfort dog" in her apartment.

Sandra Biegel was 74 when she died in 2007, just weeks after she gave up her pet miniature schnauzer, named Mikey, under threat of eviction by the Woodbury Gardens senior citizens cooperative, according to a lawsuit filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevan Cleary in federal District Court in Brooklyn.

"She was heartbroken. She was crying her eyes out" after giving up the dog, her husband, Jack Biegel, said Tuesday in a telephone interview from Florida, where he is vacationing. "Mikey was everything to her, he stayed in bed with her all day, and calmed her blood pressure down.

"They bullied us. They took advantage of us," Biegel said of the cooperative's board of directors, to whom he said he naively went without a lawyer to appeal for keeping the dog.

Although his wife had notes from four different doctors saying that the dog was essential to her ability to cope with her ailments, the board would not reconsider. Biegel said one board member told them at a meeting that "there is no democracy here."

"The co-op disputes the allegations and will not litigate the matter in the media," Mark Schneider, the attorney for the co-op, said Tuesday.

The Biegels moved into the cooperative in November 2005 and acquired the schnauzer around August 2006, the suit stated.

The 214-unit cooperative, just off Jericho Turnpike, had a no-pet policy, but it should have waived it because the dog helped Sandra Biegel deal with multiple illnesses, which included difficulty walking, "severe respiratory problems, depression, anxiety, cirrhosis, diabetes and decreased vision and hearing," according to U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch of the Eastern District of New York.

Sandra Biegel, a retired bookkeeper, "was very frail, was on oxygen twenty-four hours a day and was unable to leave her home without an ambulance," the suit said.

And even after the Biegels sent the dog to live with a nearby friend, the board forced him to pay $3,000 in fines and lawyers' fees, Biegel said, as his current lawyer, Meir Moza of Mineola, listened in on Tuesday's phone call.

The federal suit seeks unspecified damages for her estate and her husband, and an order to have the cooperative comply with the federal Fair Housing Act.

"Our seniors with disabilities want what all seniors want -- to live with dignity, maintain, mobility, and retain their connections to the world. Comfort animals play an essential role in helping disabled seniors do just that. Sadly, Mrs. Biegel's final days were bereft of this vital assistant," Lynch said.

With Matthew Chayes