Embattled NYC-DSA Co-Chair Gustavo Gordillo is being sued for eviction after failing to pay rent on a Crown Heights apartment while his family’s $1.5 million townhouse underwent renovations.
Gordillo, 38, the son of a Florida telecommunications magnate, skipped three monthly payments of $2,500 on the Eastern Parkway one-bedroom he leased in May 2025, according to court filings reviewed by The Post. His landlord, Shimon Liashi, took him to Brooklyn housing court in March seeking $5,000 for missed December and January payments. Gordillo never filed an answer to the suit as New York law requires within 10 days of being served, and the case remains pending.
From his first month in the apartment, Gordillo treated the rent bill “like a mere suggestion,” according to an account statement filed in court. He dodged payments for months at a time, then coughed up one lump sum after racking up three months of unpaid rent. The pattern repeated until Liashi finally filed suit. The apartment was rented to someone else in May, records show.
NYC Councilwoman Vickie Paladino, 67, unloaded on the DSA leader in a statement to The Post. “This should be surprising, but it isn’t,” she said. “The entitlement of these rich DSA kids is bottomless. Even when his parents are paying his bills, he still stiffed his landlord.”
Paladino continued: “It’s really appalling that these brats are in charge of our city now, when they’re so quick to screw over working people and can’t even manage their own lives.”
Gordillo’s housing troubles come as he has built a public profile as a “rent abolitionist,” a position he articulated at a DSA Housing Justice meeting in 2022. “It’s mitigating harm,” he said of housing court, according to a transcript obtained by The Post. “It’s not abolishing landlords and rent which are our long-term socialist goals.”
The Yale-educated sculptor’s radical rhetoric has drawn fresh scrutiny given his family wealth. His father, Gustavo E. Gordillo, founder and CEO of DraftPros, a telecommunications engineering firm with an estimated $90 million in annual revenue from clients including AT&T and Verizon, confirmed to The Post that he purchased the Brooklyn property for his sons. The elder Gordillo bought the townhouse for $935,000 in 2019, and estimates place its current value between $1.5 million and $1.7 million, an 80% increase.
Renovation plans for the landmarked Bed-Stuy property, presented by Garrison Architects to the community board in 2023, call for adding a third floor and rooftop to the two-story home. Major work permits were approved in June 2025, the same month Gordillo’s first rent payment came due, according to city records. The renovations are estimated at $1.4 million or more, and the house remains under construction.
NYC attorney Maud Maron told The Post that Gordillo’s case exemplifies a broader pattern. “Gustavo has a luxury home to go with his luxury beliefs,” she said. “His DSA activism confers social status on him while the real costs of the DSA anti-landlord policies raise the prices on everyone else without rich parents to pay their rent or buy them brownstones.”
Gordillo has publicly called for banning double-digit returns on real estate investments. “Landlords in New York have been making a 12% return on their investment on average… we don’t think that anybody should have a constitutional right to double-digit returns on their investment,” he said during an interview last month.
In the viral moment that intensified scrutiny of Gordillo this week, The Post revealed that the DSA leader had made his identity as a “union electrician” central to his communist persona despite never having worked a day in the trade. The electricians’ union confirmed he was booted from the apprenticeship program for failing to pay his dues. The disclosure followed his push last month to make his previously unpaid DSA co-chair position a $95,000-a-year job, which his comrades approved.
Gordillo’s only apparent paycheck since moving to New York came from high-end Chelsea gallery Greene Naftali, where he worked from 2016 to 2019. During that period, he listed his occupation as “serf” in FEC records documenting 40 campaign donations to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns and candidates including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. He also modeled a “gender-neutral union printed” DSA-branded tank top, currently discounted to $29.99 from $34.99.
The Gordillo family’s wealth has funded other luxuries. Gustavo joined relatives on a South American cruise aboard the Zafiro Amazon River Cruise, with excursions starting at $3,856 per person and reaching up to $5,600 for four-to-eight-day trips featuring air-conditioned private suites and hot tubs. A photo from the trip shows Gordillo and his father looking awe-struck on a small boat as their guide holds what appears to be a baby alligator. His mother, Elizabeth, drives a 2019 silver Porsche two-door, according to a speeding ticket obtained by The Post.
Sara Forman, senior adviser to community and policy platform Optimist Labs, told The Post: “It takes a lot of chutzpah to live a secret double-life cosplaying as a ‘working man’ who espouses Marxism for the people while living comfortably off the capitalist gains of his immigrant parents.”
Gordillo’s father did not return a request for comment on the eviction case.