Former Santa Barbara School Board member and recent mayoral candidate Lanny Ebenstein prevailed in court Monday in a dispute with his tenants, who had charged that Ebenstein evicted them in retaliation for their complaints about the condition of their 27-room rental home on Glendessary Lane. The tenants-the extended family of business consultant Neil Raden and author and hormone therapist T.S. Wiley-also suggested that Ebenstein took unfair advantage of a family trust established for his developmentally disabled brother. Judge William McLafferty ruled the tenants’ arguments were both inadmissible and irrelevant to the central legal question: whether Ebenstein was legally entitled not to renew their family’s two-year lease. In court, Ebenstein argued that he did not renew the lease because the Raden-Wiley family was continually late with the rent, and that he discovered that 45 lawsuits had been filed against members of the Raden-Wiley family over unpaid bills in the past 25 years. The tenants have denied the charges and are demanding a jury trial. McLafferty asked attorneys for both sides to submit legal arguments justifying why they are entitled to one or not.

Login

Please note this login is to submit events or press releases. Use this page here to login for your Independent subscription

Not a member? Sign up here.