An 84-year-old grandfather at the heart of an ongoing property dispute over a Brooklyn brownstone that sparked protests and a handful of arrests was taken into custody by the city Sheriff’s Office and sent back to Georgia, where he’s a ward of the state, the Daily News has learned.
A Brooklyn civil court judge had ordered New York City sheriffs to find Allman Charrington and hold him until he can be brought back to Georgia, when the elderly man was spotted walking along the sidewalk near the Jefferson Ave. brownstone in Bedford Stuyvesant Friday afternoon.
Allman was taken into custody after a brief clash with Charrington’s family, who tried to stop the sheriffs from taking him away. Georgia authorities took custody of Charrington on Saturday, city officials said.
“In accordance with a court order, the Sheriff’s Office located the individual and transported him to a local hospital,” a spokesman for the city Department of Finance, which oversees the Sheriff’s Office, said Saturday. “He was in the Sheriff’s safe custody with access to medical care until the State of Georgia personnel accompanied him for the travel back to his home in Georgia.”
Carmella Charrington, Allman’s daughter, who was elected a Democratic District Leader this week, said city sheriffs appeared as her father was walking with his grandson. About “100 cops” showed up to take him into custody, she said.
“(They) jumped out and barricaded my father,” she told the Daily News Saturday. “They abducted my father and put him in the ambulance.”
She and her attorney plan to go to court to demand Allman be returned to Brooklyn.
“I’m gonna take whatever legal steps that I can take in order to stop this,” Charrington’s attorney, Tricia Lindsay, said. “It’s bad enough that they’re taking him into custody. I mean, he’s an elderly gentleman who is with the person, his daughter, who he named as a guardian and gave power of attorney to.”
“His rights, his liberty and interests are at stake, and his rights are being violated,” Lindsay said.
Sources at the city Sheriff’s Office said they stopped the senior once they saw him in the street. A moment later, Charrington’s family and a few neighbors tried to stop them from taking him. The senior was taken into custody after a brief confrontation, but no one was arrested, officials said.
Carmella Charrington, 54, called the court order authorizing the sheriffs to take Allman a “fake warrant” that she and her family have been fighting in court.
The senior’s welfare has been part of a years-long legal dispute tied to the sale of the Jefferson Ave. property that started in a Georgia probate court in 2020 over who would become the legal guardian for Allman, who is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, according to court papers.
Carmella Charrington and her sister, Athena, clashed with Allman’s wife, Karen, over who would gain conservatorship of their father, who owned the Jefferson Ave. property. After an August 2021 proceeding, the probate judge designated Georgia attorney Luanne Bonnie to be Allman’s conservator and that Allman would be a ward of the state of Georgia, where he was living at the time.
In November 2023, Allman Charrington’s grandson asked for permission to take his father back to Brooklyn for a family funeral. The state allowed the senior to go, but he was never returned to Georgia.
Since then, Bonnie has taken Charrington’s family to court, repeatedly demanding they return Allman to Georgia. A Brooklyn civil court judge agreed and ordered Carmella Charrington to bring her father to court on March 21. When she didn’t, Carmella Charrington was charged with contempt of court and sentenced to spend a week on Rikers Island. The judge also ordered city sheriffs to find Allman.
As conservator, Bonnie sold the brownstone to 227 Group LLC for $1.4 million in cash in early 2024 — a sale Carmella Charrington and her father have challenged.
When city marshals tried to evict Charrington’s family from the home over the property dispute on April 22, about 50 protesters led by City Councilman Chi Ossé blocked the front door. The councilman and two others were arrested.
Video of the incident shows Ossé and others attempting to block entry to the building as the eviction effort got underway. The police then appear to grab hold off the councilmember, pushing him to the ground and handcuffing him.
“What the f— are you doing?” a protester can be heard yelling in the video.
While Carmella Charrington and advocates have called the saga around her home deed theft, the State Attorney General’s Office concluded in 2025 the matter was not deed theft, but rather a property dispute among the relatives of the building’s former owners.