In 2019, Oliver Abnos sued one of his midtown Kansas City tenants for $2,400 in unpaid rent. It didn’t go as planned.
The tenant, Larhonda Jones, responded by filing a counterclaim against Abnos and one of his maintenance employees, whom she alleged had sexually assaulted her on a visit to fix her toilet.
In a 2021 bench trial, Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Joel Fahnestock sided with Jones. Instead of receiving $2,400, Abnos was ordered to pay $2 million. An appeals court upheld the ruling later that year.
But Abnos — who owns several commercial and residential properties in Kansas City — never paid.
As a result, the court last year appointed a receiver to liquidate Abnos’ real estate holdings to pay the judgment. Those properties are now up for bidding at Mayo Auction and Realty.
They include a Brookside strip center, a 50,000-square-foot historic midtown building erected in 1923, several homes and two mixed-use commercial storefronts on Troost Avenue.
The lawsuit
Jones was living at 3927 Troost Ave. in 2019 with her three children (then 6, 7 and 16) when, she alleged, Abnos sent an employee, Frank Hassanzadeh, to her apartment to repair a clogged toilet that was leaking water onto the floor.
Hassanzadeh, who could not be reached for comment, asked her if she was married or had a boyfriend.
“Eventually it escalated to him pushing her against the wall, kissing on her, putting his hand down her pants,” said Brian Russell, Jones’ attorney. “Finally, she gets her off him and he leaves.”
Jones called Abnos to report what happened and asked him not to send Hassanzadeh back to her home. A few days later, Abnos and Hassanzadeh showed up to apologize, which Russell said Jones captured on video. At one point during their conversation, Abnos asked Hassanzadeh to kiss Jones’ hand, presumably as a sign of respect. She asked that he not. They left. Abnos promised Hassanzadeh wouldn’t bother her anymore.
“But Abnos kept sending him over to the property,” Russell said. “Then he let (Hassanzadeh) move into the property next door to her.”
Abnos also allegedly made sexually suggestive comments to Jones and her 16-year-old daughter, according to the counterclaim. And Jones heard reports that Hassanzadeh had inappropriately touched another tenant. Hassanzadeh also retained a key to her apartment, according to the lawsuit.
Uncomfortable in her home, Jones got a dog for protection. She asked if she could break her lease and Abnos said no. Later that year, she fell behind on her payments and Abnos’ property management company, J&D Management, sued Jones for the $2,400 in rent. She tried to get on a payment plan with Abnos but the lawsuit moved forward. Left with few options, she moved her family into temporary housing.
“Essentially, she was trapped in (Abnos’) property until she was forced to move to a homeless shelter,” Fahnestock wrote in her ruling.
In Jones’ countersuit, she named Abnos, Hassanzadeh and Abnos’ companies J&D Management and Troost Light LLC, which executed the lease. In early 2020, Abnos failed to appear at several court dates. The rent case against Jones was dismissed. Abnos continued to be absent as the counterclaims against him moved forward.
“He would sometimes pop up and say he was going to get a lawyer, but really he was just ducking us,” Russell said.
After hearing witness testimony and other evidence in a bench trial in January 2021, Fahnestock entered a judgment awarding Jones $1 million in punitive damages and $1 million for pain and suffering. Later that year, Abnos appealed the judgment in Missouri’s Western District Court of Appeals and lost.
“We’ve been trying to collect on it ever since,” Russell said.
The properties
Throughout 2022, Abnos filed several motions with the court designed, Jones’ counsel said in court documents, to “evade the inevitable enforcement and legitimacy of the ($2 million) judgment.”
Fed up, the court in March 2023 appointed attorney Victor Weber to act as a receiver in the case — in effect, a trustee to take over Abnos’ assets, preserve them, and prepare them for liquidation to pay his judgment and other debts.
Has Abnos been cooperative?
“Sometimes,” Weber told The Star.
Reached by phone Monday, Abnos, 68, told The Star that the $2 million judgment was “completely unfair.”
“I have done nothing that deserves this auction,” he said.
He said he was unable to say anything further but that he would have his brother return the call. He did not. Abnos and his brother Damon Abnos have partnered on the purchase of various retail buildings in the past, according to Jackson County property records. Nicholas Abnos, also a relative, is the owner of the former Brandsmart building in Waldo, which has been under construction for approximately 20 years.
In late March, Weber put 45 of Abnos’ properties up for auction. They include:
▪ The Brookside shopping center once known as Morningside Plaza, at 59th Street and Holmes Road. The property includes six commercial units and is best-known for being anchored by Earl’s Premier, a neighborhood seafood restaurant that opened in 2022..
▪ The former Marquette Club, at 1115 E. Armour Blvd. Built in 1923 as a Catholic men’s community center and apartment complex, the 50,000-square-foot brick and stone building later served as Army barracks during World War II. It is surrounded by new development near Armour and Troost but is boarded up and has long been in disrepair.
▪ A mixed-use building at the northeast corner of 43rd Street and Troost that includes four apartments and four commercial units.
▪ A mixed-use building at the northeast corner of 40th Street and Troost that includes six apartments and four commercial units.
▪ A nine-unit apartment building at 1106 E. 40th St.
▪ A vacant building at 32nd Terrace and Troost with four commercial units and three parking lots.
▪ Six residential homes in midtown.
The full list can be found at the Mayo Auction and Realty website. Bids were set to end at 5 p.m. Wednesday, May 1.
Source Agencies
