(WSVN) - She struggles with mental problems, and for a reason she doesn’t understand, walked out of her condo without clothes on. She needed help, but instead, she says she got something that shocked her and led her to call Help Me Howard with Patrick Fraser.
J.C. is blunt about it. She has difficult issues to deal with every moment of every day.
J.C.: “Yes, I have been placed on Social Security disability for mental and physical disorders.”
J.C. can usually handle her medical troubles. Her mental hurdles can overwhelm her.
J.C.: “I have PTSD, ADHD, and now, most of all, I have my depression in full force.”
She asked us to call her J.C. and not use her full name, but she wanted her story told after she started having panic attacks.
J.C.: “I can’t breathe, and I need medication. I need something to calm my breathing, my heart rate down.”
She says, after taking her medicine, she feels better if she takes her clothes off and walks around her apartment with the blinds drawn.
But on one day, for a reason she does not understand, she walked outside.
J.C.: “The only thing I could speculate is that I wanted to smoke a cigarette.”
J.C. walked around naked for about five minutes. She was seen on the condo’s surveillance cameras.
She says no one came to guide her back inside. Instead, a manager notified her mother, who called fire rescue.
Patrick Fraser: “No one came to help you?”
J.C. “No, they took pictures of me instead.”
That’s right. After J.C. returned from the hospital, she found out an email was sent by the Jockey Club management office with snapshots of her walking naked, showing her from the front and back.
J.C. “The pictures were of me fully naked. If one had to be emailed, my ass would have been sufficient enough.”
J.C. says the emails were sent to board members, to her mother and to her landlord.
A property manager wrote that J.C. represents “a threat to herself and the community,” and “we demand to have her lease terminated.”
J.C. “It killed me, it killed me.”
J.C. says she needed help, not to be humiliated by sending out the pictures, but Howard, is it legal for someone to send out nude emails of someone having a mental illness episode?
Howard Finkelstein, 7News legal expert: “In this case, it’s probably not illegal, because they were sent to board members, a landlord and J.C.’s mother, all who have a legitimate interest in being apprised of the situation. However, if someone broadly disseminated those pictures with the attempt to humiliate J.C., that is illegal, and it could cost them a lot of money.”
We emailed and called the property manager and the attorney for the board, plus the landlord and her attorney. No one wanted to comment.
But the landlord did what the association wanted her to do, and sent J.C. an eviction notice for walking around fully naked.
Howard, can they do that?
Howard Finkelstein: “Legally, I don’t think so. The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination against someone with a mental disability, and trying to evict someone for an episode like this would violate the law.”
That will give J.C. a little peace of mind, as she tries to get her life back on track.
J.C.: “When I have my medication, and everything is going fine, everything is going good.”
We are going to keep an eye, J.C., and make sure they don’t break the law by trying to evict her.
By the way, thank you to all the people who have wished me good luck after seeing I am having a little battle with skin cancer. I had a checkup on Tuesday. Everything is going great, and of course, a few bandages aren’t going to stop me from helping you, so if you have a problem, get in touch with us.
CONTACT HELP ME HOWARD:
Email: helpmehoward@wsvn.com
Reporter: Patrick Fraser at pfraser@wsvn.com
Miami-Dade: 305-953-WSVN
Broward: 954-761-WSVN
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