Harlem couple Tommie and Mara Porter are seeking justice from the Bronx District Attorney’s office after a deacon at their beloved Abyssinian Baptist Church allegedly defrauded them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars for home renovations, they claimed in a lawsuit.
Jerome Yeiser — a longtime deacon at the historic Harlem church, where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg teaches Sunday school — is under investigation for allegedly swindling money from the Porters.
They claimed they hired and paid Yeiser to renovate their home, only for him to pocket it for his own debts and not complete the projects.
And it’s a lot of money.
The Porters signed a renovation contract with Yeiser’s company, SIVA Real Estate Services, Inc., in 2018 to update their then newly purchased historic $1.44 million brownstone.
They claim they paid Yeiser $480,341 over a seven-month period for the project, but, “to date, $288,283 of this money has been spent on the project, and $194,058 remains unaccounted for,” according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit further claimed, “Yeiser, in the operation of Siva, operated this business as his alter ego, seeking to shield himself from personal liability while at the same time diverting funds of these business and from the Porters for Jerome Yeiser’s personal purposes.”
He also allegedly wasn’t a licensed contractor when they hired him, according to the suit.
“The money that we lost was the equivalent of our children’s college tuition. It’s really their future that’s been taken from them, and it’s devastating,” Tommie, an IT exec, told Page Six.
When we reached out to Yeiser for comment on Monday, an unidentified woman told us, “No comment, and we don’t know about a criminal investigation at all.”
A spokesperson for the Bronx DA replied, “there is an ongoing investigation,” when we inquired about Yeiser, but did not provide additional details.
This isn’t the first time Yeiser has found himself being sued by church members. John and Cheryl Graves sued Yeiser in 2020 for breach of contract and fraud after they hired him to renovate the basement of their Harlem brownstone to the tune of $48,155.33.
Their lawsuit claimed that Yeiser stopped paying his subcontractors, and that he ultimately admitted to them orally, “that he used the money for the project, to pay for his own personal trip and part of his daughter’s education.”
The cases have not been resolved and Yeiser brought his own lawsuits against the Porters and the Graves, suing them for defamation. The matter is still under litigation.
Abyssinian has been a pillar of the New York Black community since it was founded in 1808. Former President Barack Obama attended the church regularly when he was a student at Columbia University, and fashion icon Andre Leon Talley’s memorial was held there.
Church members also helped Bragg get elected. In 2019, the Manhattan District Attorney’s office opened an investigation into Yeiser. Bragg then recused the office from the case in 2022 when he became the DA because of his connection to the church.
A spokesperson for DA Bragg confirmed in a statement: “The Office received a complaint and, in August 2022, referred the matter to the Bronx based on 1) the relationship between DA Bragg and the subject of the complaint (e.g. DA Bragg taught his children years ago in Sunday school) and 2) the nexus of the allegations and the church community.”
The Bronx DA’s office closed the case in 2023 due to insufficient evidence.
Tommie and Mara, a host of “CrimeFeed” on Investigation Discovery, are no longer members of the church after their experience with Yeiser — but the church has seemingly thrown their support behind them.
After deacons learned about the investigation, they came forward with new information that “we believe is crucial to the investigation,” they wrote to Bronx DA Darcel Clark in April.
They shared that their late pastor Rev. Dr. Calvin O. Butts, III, who passed away in 2022, summoned them for an emergency meeting in 2019 where he informed them about the Porters’ accusations against Yeiser.
This led to the Bronx DA’s office reopening the investigation, according to a source familiar with the letter.
The chairman of the deacon board would not comment on the letter or the investigation.
Some powerful New Yorkers are also throwing their support behind the couple and other families, “who claim to have been financially destroyed by a member of Harlem’s spiritual community.”
In an effort to encourage the DA’s office to speed up the investigation, the influential group sent a community support letter to Clark urging her to “swiftly deliver the justice that they deserve and where the evidence supports it to immediately file charges.”
“No one should have to endure the indignity and life shattering trauma of, according to them, having their life savings taken from them, no less by a leader in their church… Seemingly, their cries for justice have gone unheard,” the letter read.
Michael Strahan, Nancy Grace, Tamron Hall, Bevy Smith, NYC Councilman Yusef Salaam, Actum founding partner Rachel Noerdlinger and Public Advocate Jumaane Williams are a few of the names attached to the letter.
“We’re so encouraged by the support we received from our local elected officials and some of our closest friends, and we’re very grateful to the district attorney for the hard work she’s doing on this case,” Tommie said.
“We’ve been seeking justice for five years, the statue of limitations is now looming. We remain incredibly hopeful that we’ll get the justice we’ve been seeking,” he concluded.
