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Berkeley Court Commissioner John Rantzman heard several hours of testimony from neighbors of a South Berkeley homeowner on Thursday describing the personal and economic damages they claim they have suffered living near what they say police call “the most notorious house in Berkeley.” 

“I’m a prisoner in my own house,” community college teacher Monica Bosson, who lives three doors from the Oregon Street home owned by 75-year-old Lenora Moore, told the court. Bosson said she has watched numerous drug deals in the Moore house. 

“I can’t garden in my front yard, and I love to garden. I’ve found needles, drug baggies, condoms, and liquor bottles in my front yard. I’ve been the victim of a home invasion,” she said. “People walk by and urinate in my yard. Lenora Moore not only does not stop this activity, her acquiescence condones the actions that are going on through her house.” 

Fifteen neighbors of Moore have filed suit in Small Claims Court in Berkeley claiming that Moore’s house is a hub of South Berkeley drug dealing by Moore’s children and grandchildren. The neighbors are asking $5,000 in damages apiece. 

There have been no allegations from neighbors that Moore herself is involved in the drug dealing. But with several of Moore’s children having been convicted of drug dealing offenses, the neighbors are alleging that Moore either will not or cannot prevent her offspring from using the house for illegal activities. 

Moore, who has seven children, 37 grandchildren, and 20 great-grandchildren, lives in the Oregon Street house with her disabled husband, two of the grandchildren, and a live-in attendant who takes care of her husband. She works at the West Oakland Senior Center. 

Thursday’s session was the second half-day of testimony in the case, and Commissioner Rantzman set a third session for Nov. 28. Testimony is expected at that time by Taj Johns, Neighborhood Services Liaison for the City of Berkeley, concerning the history of her office’s intervention at Moore’s house. 

Activity in the courtroom showed the unusual amount of interest in a small claims case. Former Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean, who has continued her interest in Berkeley political and neighborhood activities, was there. Plaintiffs were assisted in preparing their filings and court case by the Oakland-based nonprofit organization Neighborhood Solutions, although one of the plaintiffs, Paul Rauber, is presenting the case in court. Moore is being represented in court by Berkeley paralegal Leo Stegman. 

Ms. Moore testified briefly on Thursday. Asked by Stegman what she felt about drugs, Moore said, “I feel very bad about drugs. I don’t like them. I don’t use them. I’m against anyone around me using them.” 

She said that she has never seen anybody selling drugs on her property. And when Stegman asked if she had confronted anyone “hanging out, playing loud music, screaming or shouting” on her property, Moore answered, “Yes. I’ve chased them away. I’ve told them to get away from the front of my house.” 

With plaintiffs having presented their case at the first hearing last month on allegations of drug activity coming out of the Moore house, Commissioner Rantzman limited their testimony on Thursday to the damages they claim they have suffered. Plantiffs gave two hours of allegations of slashed tires, stalking and surveillance by what they called “associates of Ms. Moore,” burglaries, violence, speeding, loud noise, calls to the hospital to pick up people with drug overdoses, and other activities associated with drug trafficking and drug use. 

Rauber said, “My 2-year old daughter found a hypodermic needle while we were working in the yard. She held it up and asked me, ‘What’s this, Daddy?’” Pausing, his voice breaking up, Rauber asked, “What kind of father am I to raise my child in an environment like this?” 

Suzanne Baptiste described the social and political toll that South Berkeley drug activity has taken on her. 

“I used to be the stereotypical Berkeley liberal,” Baptiste said. “I believed that drugs should be legalized. I’ve been to Amsterdam. But I now know without a shadow of a doubt that drugs bring violence. I don’t like the change that has come over me. I’ve become harder and less compassionate. I now believe in the three strikes law. And though I’m not proud of it, I’ve learned to use a firearm.” 

Baptiste did not put all of the blame on Moore, however, saying that she was “extremely disappointed in the city of Berkeley” for not addressing neighbors’ concerns about the South Berkeley drug problems. 

“Berkeley is culpable,” she said. “The city has let us down.” 

Offering rebuttal after each plaintiff’s testimony, Stegman did not refute their allegations of drug-related activity, but repeatedly argued that the plaintiffs had not tied much of that activity to Moore’s house. 

“They want to blame this one lady for all the crime in Berkeley,” he said. At one point, when a plaintiff said that one of Moore’s grandchildren had assaulted her child, Stegman said that “small claims court is not the place to handle fights between children.” 

At another point, Stegman accused the plaintiffs of racism against the African-American Moore. Reacting to a plaintiff’s remark about the diversity in their South Berkeley neighborhood, Stegman retorted, “What they really want in the neighborhood is for everybody to be the same color and do the same thing. That’s not diversity. The plaintiffs are all the same culture and almost all the same color.” 

Before Commissioner Rantzman cut him off, Stegman said, “It just sickens me, this psuedo-diversity. It’s phony, a fake, and a fraud.”›