Real estate developers trying to claim a property occupied by a community garden in Prospect Lefferts Gardens have subpoenaed garden supporters in connection with a sidewalk slip-and-fall case, which the gardeners' lawyer says is part of a legal "pattern of harassment."

On one side is the company Housing Urban Development LLC, run by brothers Joseph and Michael Makhani. On the other is the volunteers for the Maple Street Garden and Paula Segal, an attorney and director of the open-space advocacy group 596 Acres. Segal said that the subpoenas targeted people who were quoted blasting the brothers in the news, and as they were originally written, asked for all sorts of irrelevant information in an effort to intimidate them.

"They subpoenaed every single person who has spoken publicly about Housing Urban Development’s property claims," she said. "The subpoenas were over-broad, and asked inappropriate questions about their voluntary associations with their neighbors."

Four people received the subpoenas back on December 23rd. The papers asked for, among other things, "all documents or communications concerning all work performed at the premises," all documents "identifying persons present" at the garden, and all photos and video of the garden, from 2012 to the present, though the alleged injury occurred in 2013.

The subpoenas prompted Segal to file a motion within a week asking a judge to fine their current lawyers for "frivolous conduct, including meritless and resource-wasting claims, unsupportable factual allegations, material misrepresentations to this Court, and harassing of my clients and their associates."

For some background, the Makhani brothers claim to have purchased the lot at 237 Maple St. for $5,000 from nephews of the deceased owners back in 2003. The house that once occupied the lot was abandoned after its owners' deaths, and burned down in 1997. The lot accumulated junk for 15 years until neighbors banded together to clean it up and turn it into a community garden—after they say a worker at the Makhanis' LLC refused to discuss the property.

Late last summer, after the gardeners had put two years of work into transforming the property, the Makhanis showed up demanding the garden be removed. The next morning, a crew set to ripping out a vegetable bed, but were stopped by cops when the Makhanis couldn't produce satisfactory ownership paperwork. Since then, the realtors and developers have been in court fighting over the validity of the Makhanis' deed and the gardeners' right to stay.

In the meantime, the Makhanis filed permits to build a five-story, 17-apartment building on the site.

The brothers' assertion that they bought the lot for from nephews of the deceased owners back in 2003 suffered a setback in November when Brooklyn Supreme Court Judge Mark Portnow ruled the transaction "is of dubious validity" and appointed a guardian to get to the bottom of it.

Garden backers point to crimes in the pair's past as further reason to doubt the deed.

"I try not to take their previous faults and felonies and use it against them in this case," said Bob Treuber, a garden neighbor who supported cleaning out the lot and drops his compost there. "There's a legitimate question of whether these people trying to prevent us from gardening have no right to be there."

The Makhani brothers served three months in federal prison in 1999 and paid $20,000 in fines each for anti-trust violations, and in Michael Makhani's case, for fraud, according to a U.S. Attorney's Office spokeswoman. The New York Times reported that convictions were for their roles in a scheme involving foreclosed properties in Queens, though the spokeswoman couldn't confirm that. In late 2008, the Times wrote, three companies Joseph Makhani was a principal in, including one under fire for alleged predatory lending, pleaded guilty to filing false deeds in Queens and were fined $5,000.

Through a lawyer, Joseph Makhani said that he had an interest in the companies before the criminal acts, and after the convictions, but not in between. A Queens DA's Office spokeswoman could not find record of the case, but said there are records involving Joseph Makhani that are sealed.

After a back-and-forth between Segal and lawyers for the Makhanis, the realtors' side agreed to narrow the subpoenas, to not send subpoena further gardeners as they'd planned, and to define "the premises" as just the sidewalk, leaving out the garden. The request for judicial sanctions against them is still proceeding. Michael Leon, a lawyer for the Makhanis, said his clients are planning to build affordable housing on the site, but are being stymied by irresponsible squatters.

"This is the most reprehensible part of it: my client has been trying to build affordable housing on that property," he said, noting that the company had filed "a HUD statement." "And they are preventing that from happening."

The "HUD statement" turned out to be undated application seeking a 421-a tax break from the state to build below-market rate housing on the lot. When asked what the developers plan to do now that the 421-a program has expired, Leon said they still want to build affordable housing, but he did not know for what income level. He said he could not speak to the specifics of how the deed changed hands, but that it's not fraudulent.

"That's impossible, because they have a recorded deed," he said.

Among the irregularities that have been pointed out with the transfer: the document names the two nephews but omits their contact information; it provides no proof that the nephews were the "sole heirs" to the deceased owners; and though it was supposedly notarized in Massachusetts, the notary signature is illegible, the city Worcester is misspelled, and instead of an elaborate notary stamp, the stamp simply reads "SEAL." Leon brushed aside questions about the document's validity.

"That has nothing to do with whether or not an outside community garden can come in and use the property," he said.

As for singling out people who spoke out, he said Segal has resisted providing a list of gardeners, so public records are all he has to work off of.

Treuber said he knows nothing about the alleged slip-and-fall, and no one he's talked to at the garden has mentioned it either.

"It's really peculiar that people are being deposed who could not have possibly seen the injury occur because they don't even live on this block," he said.

As for the conditions of the sidewalk outside the garden, he said it's messed up, but anyone could tell you that.

"Everybody that lives on Maple Street knows that the sidewalk is all broken up and cracked up," he said. "Little old ladies slow down or go to the other side of the street. When I got here four years ago and moved to this block it was like that."

Treuber runs a title insurance trade group, and so has some familiarity with the courts. He said that he understands his obligation to comply with the subpoena, but that it's an unnecessary drag.

"It's disruptive to my life to take time off of work and prepare for this," he said.

The first round of depositions took place last week, and Segal said she doesn't believe the Makhanis' lawyers learned much of interest.

"The folks who were subpoenaed were able to verify that the sidewalk is screwed up," she said.