Defamation, stalking, ‘bogus’ lease? In Boise restaurant eviction case, allegations fly
Jill Monteith said that the night before she arrived at the Ada County Courthouse for an Oct. 3 eviction hearing, she planned on quick legal proceedings to get back her building in Boise’s North End from a tenant who had fallen months behind on rent.
The tenant, Danielle Riddle, had rebuffed offers to let her out of her lease on the Hyde Park structure housing the restaurant Apericena — without consequences, Monteith said.
Instead, Monteith said she learned by email that Riddle — who also uses the name Danielle Christine professionally — had filed her own lawsuit as a counter to the eviction proceedings. In that suit, filed on Oct. 2, Riddle accused Monteith of falsifying the lease, stalking Riddle’s partner, failing to provide important repairs to the building and attempting to defame Riddle, among other allegations, according to Ada County court documents.
“I was completely blindsided by that,” Monteith told the Idaho Statesman in a phone interview.
The legal back-and-forth comes at a time of turmoil for Riddle’s businesses. Apericena hasn’t been open to customers for weeks, Monteith said, and has faced accusations from several former employees about late or missing wages. Its sister restaurant, Bistro d’Helene, faced eviction proceedings in July before reaching an agreement to close and vacate its space on Fort Street by the end of September, the Statesman previously reported.
Riddle’s lawsuit prompted a magistrate judge to move the case to 4th District Court, according to documents. As a result, it likely will take significantly longer to work its way through the judicial process.
Riddle sued Monteith on seven counts, claiming over $40,000 in damages. Juniper Cooper-Grivas, Riddle’s attorney, declined to comment on the lawsuit, citing the pending litigation.
Allegations of stalking, a fraudulent lease
In her lawsuit, Riddle accused Monteith of falsifying the lease documents she submitted in her complaint for eviction, claiming that pages in the “so-called lease” had been “removed from the original and replaced with bogus and false pages.”
Monteith denied this, telling the Statesman that the lease shared in court documents was the exact copy Riddle signed in 2022.
Riddle also took issue with the way she said she was notified of the eviction proceedings, claiming that a notice was taped to the door of her restaurant but was never mailed to her business or personal address. Monteith ultimately served Riddle’s partner, Vance Lichtenberger, at his gym class “in front of his friends, causing him great personal embarrassment,” according to the lawsuit.
“To locate him, (Monteith) would have had to follow him from (Riddle’s) residence after he left for a morning business meeting, then follow him from the meeting to his class,” Riddle alleged. Monteith “was therefore guilty of stalking.”
She also argued that Lichtenberger was not a party to the lawsuit and should not have been involved.
Monteith challenged this account. In an email to the Statesman, she said she and her son, Dillon Monteith, offered in May and again in September to release Riddle from her lease “with no further ramifications,” but that this offer was declined and, later, ignored.
Monteith said she attempted seven times to serve Riddle at her home. When that failed, she served Lichtenberger at the gym, which has class times posted publicly online. Lichtenberger had been involved in meetings related to the restaurant’s lease, even if he wasn’t legally part of the business, Monteith said.
“He was definitely hands-on,” she told the Statesman.
A troubled landlord-tenant relationship from the beginning
Riddle’s relationship with Monteith was troubled early on, court documents suggest. When the lease began in 2022, Monteith “made it clear that the only way (Riddle) would be allowed to rent it is if she purchased everything in it — no exceptions,” Riddle alleged.
Riddle said she struggled to secure an inventory of these items, which created confusion. The items she found in the space were in poor condition, she alleged: “broken, misused, worn out, and were generally unusable.”
“The prior tenant’s food items had been left to rot in the premises,” according to Riddle’s lawsuit.
Riddle also alleged that there were “major issues” at the property, including exposed electrical wiring, dysfunctional heating and air conditioning units, and plumbing failures.
“Numerous attempts to negotiate with the building owner regarding the need for these critical repairs, including attempts at mediation and eventually forced legal action, led nowhere,” Riddle said in her suit. Monteith “simply refused everything,” instead implying that she planned to evict Riddle, “supposedly as a joke,” according to Riddle.
Monteith disputed this. Riddle paid Dillon Monteith about 20% of the cost of the former Hyde House’s assets, including kitchen equipment, and never paid the rest, Jill Monteith said. When Riddle informed her of electrical problems, Monteith paid for an electrician to come to the property, she said.
As for the rest of Riddle’s claims, Monteith told the Statesman that the lawsuit was the first she heard of them.
Riddle also accused Monteith of committing “repeated acts of defamation,” “attempting to hold (Riddle) up to public contempt, hatred and ridicule.”
Monteith said that wasn’t her recollection of the past two years. She said she avoided charging Riddle late fees for rent and “was trying to work with her.”
“I know the restaurant business is hard,” Monteith told the Statesman.
She also said she couldn’t understand why Riddle would file a lawsuit instead of simply giving up the building, considering that Apericena has been shuttered.
“That’s what’s so perplexing about this,” Monteith said. “You’re not even open … Why wouldn’t you just give me the ... building back then? That’s all I asked, ever.”
This story was originally published October 14, 2024 at 4:24 PM.
