"No evidence was presented to the court that code enforcement officers began their investigation of these properties because of the identity of the owner," Whitney wrote in the June 12 decision. "The court finds that no evidence has been provided that demonstrates discriminatory intent before the initial zoning infractions were cited, nor any dependable evidence that enforcement continued or increased due to antisemitic reasons."
Baumgarten is one of the reported owners of CBZ Management, a New York-based property management company that ran now-defunct apartment complexes at 1568 Nome Street and the Edge of Lowry, as well as close to a dozen still operational properties across Colorado. His ties to CBZ are complicated, though, as a variety of LLCs are registered as the owners of the properties, and it's unclear who owns those LLCs.
The motion acknowledged that CBZ's three former properties in Aurora received dozens of code violations in 2024, and compared that to the few, if any, violations given to ninety "similarly situated" properties in the city with "similar rent rates and arguably similar crime rates." Garnett argued this was evidence of selective enforcement, but Whitney disagreed.
"While one can assume that those properties have owners, no evidence has shown that the lack of citation of these owners was associated with race or religion," Whitney wrote in his June 12 decision.
According to Whitney, Garnett's motion also overlooked "the inherent nature of zoning violations," which is that "once a structure is in the sights of zoning enforcers, citation issuance can increase until the property is remediated."
The 1568 Nome Street facility in Aurora, also known as Aspen Groves or Fitzsimons Place, as well as the Edge of Lowry at 1218 Dallas Street were ground zero for the national embarrassment that Aurora suffered last summer and into the 2024 presidential election, with politicians and media outlets alike citing them as hot beds of gang activity.
None of the three CBZ sites in Aurora are still owned by CBZ. Baumgarten agreed to sell 1568 Nome Street in exchange for avoiding charges on criminal code violations there, according to court records. The Edge and Whispering Pines were given to a third-party receiver after CBZ defaulted on loans.
Whitney's decision puts an end to a motion filed on April 25 by Baumgarten's lawyer, Stan Garnett, the former Boulder district attorney. In it, he accused Aurora code enforcers of anti-Semitism and sought to introduce evidence to help Baumgarten's defense in a criminal case for outstanding code violations at the Edge and Whispering Pines.
Baumgarten "dons the long, uncut beard maintained by the men of his religion as well as a yarmulke/kipa on his head," Garnett wrote in his April motion. According to Garnett, Aurora code enforcers explicitly told Baumgarten in late 2022 that they were targeting him because he's an Orthodox Jew.
The motion acknowledged that CBZ's three former properties in Aurora received dozens of code violations in 2024, and compared that to the few, if any, violations given to ninety "similarly situated" properties in the city with "similar rent rates and arguably similar crime rates." Garnett argued this was evidence of selective enforcement, but Whitney disagreed.
"While one can assume that those properties have owners, no evidence has shown that the lack of citation of these owners was associated with race or religion," Whitney wrote in his June 12 decision.
According to Whitney, Garnett's motion also overlooked "the inherent nature of zoning violations," which is that "once a structure is in the sights of zoning enforcers, citation issuance can increase until the property is remediated."
Garnett isn't happy about the decision, but notes that Whitney suggested there are other ways for Garnett to introduce evidence of anti-Semitism in Baumgarten's defense.
"We were disappointed in the court's ruling, but encouraged with the court's suggestion that there may be other ways to obtain the information we had asked for," Garnett says.
"We were disappointed in the court's ruling, but encouraged with the court's suggestion that there may be other ways to obtain the information we had asked for," Garnett says.
Fallout of National Embarrassment
Last August, the city evicted more than 100 residents from 1568 Nome Street because it had fallen into severe neglect, and Baumgarten responded by hiring a Florida-based crisis management team to tell the media it had been taken over by violent Venezuelan migrants with the Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang.
The City of Aurora tried to stomp out Baumgarten's gang claims right away, with Mayor Mike Coffman telling the press that Baumgarten was an "out-of-state slumlord." That might have worked, but on August 18, Cindy Romero, a former resident of the Edge, shared footage of men walking the halls of her apartment building with guns.
That footage triggered a flurry of headlines claiming the city was being taken over by violent Venezuelan migrants, which inspired President Donald Trump to hold a campaign rally in Aurora in October. He even named his mass deportation plan Operation Aurora because of its sudden reputation as a TdA haven.
In January, Coffman said the city was still reeling from the "national embarrassment." While the Aurora Police Department denied that TdA took over the apartment buildings, it did report several crimes by suspected TdA members, like a December 17 kidnapping and a fatal shooting on August 18 by the six men captured in the Romero footage. The APD never confirmed that TdA was in control of any buildings.
The cities of Aurora and Denver identified Baumgarten and his brother Shmaryahu as the owners of CBZ in their efforts to enforce outstanding property code violations, but Aurora Judge Billy Stiggers nearly dismissed the Baumgarten case in December because of a lack of evidence for the claim.
In his motion, Garnett wrote that CBZ Management is owned by a family consortium and Baumgarten "assisted the owners" with "property-related issues, often appearing on the premises."
On June 10, Judge Whitney issued seven arrest warrants for Baumgarten after he failed to appear in court, adding to his outstanding warrants in Denver. Garnett told Whitney at a hearing that day that he doesn't know exactly where Baumgarten is, but that he's out of state and won't return because "he fears for his safety." Meanwhile, Shmaryahu has been on a Caribbean island since March building a luxury resort. On June 20, the office of Aurora City Attorney Pete Schulte and Garnett submitted a list of agreed facts of the case, including that Shmaryahu is "the managing member of Five Dallas," the LLC that owned the Edge, and is "one of two members of CBZ Management." Meanwhile, Zev "served from time to time as a consultant to Five Dallas and CBZ Management" and was the registered agent for Five Dallas, which means he was the "official point of contact," according to the filing.
Perhaps most significantly, Aurora agreed in the statement of facts that "in or around June 2024, TdA had assumed control of the property," the Edge of Lowry, a claim the city previously denied. "TdA and its associates were extorting tenants to pay their rent to TdA instead of Five Dallas and threatening Five Dallas and its property manager with physical violence if they attempted to access the property," according to the June 20 filing. "Five Dallas communicated with the city about its issues with TdA...the city continued to issue code violations."
Garnett is "very pleased" that the city confirmed "Tren de Aragua was present in Aurora as early as 2023 and that they had effectively taken over the Five Dallas properties," he says. "Tthis is a very significant development."
