A woke New York City mayoral aide who said it was racist for white people to own property faces a new scandal over her father’s capitalist antics.  

Cea Weaver, who runs Zohran Mamdani’s Office to Protect Tenants, outraged New Yorkers with her calls to ‘seize private property’ and branded gentrification an act of white supremacy. 

The 37-year-old, who burst into tears when confronted about her views by a Daily Mail reporter on Wednesday morning, failed to address how the push would impact her father, a history professor who is also a landlord. 

Stewart A Weaver and his wife, Tatyana Bakhmetyeva, live in a picturesque home in Rochester’s Highland Park neighborhood worth more than $514,000.

But the couple also own a near-$159,000 townhouse in nearby Brighton that they rent out as a secondary stream of income, the Daily Mail can reveal.

The University of Rochester professor and his wife purchased the home in June 2024 for $224,900, property records showed. But the Monroe County assessor’s office last year only valued the residence at $158,600.

Mr Weaver has publicly backed his daughter’s calls for tenant protections and even testified before the New York State Assembly’s housing committee in May 2019 in favor of ‘robust tenant protection’ and rent stabilization.

He told the legislature: ‘In the years that I have been myself renting a home in Brighton, New York, I have not raised the rent once.’ He argued that the rent his tenants paid covered the mortgage and built up his equity in the home. 

Given he and Bakhmetyeva purchased their Brighton townhouse just two years ago, it is unclear to which property Mr Weaver was referring. The Daily Mail did not find any records linking the couple to other residences in Brighton.

Her father’s financial sideline was uncovered just one day after the Daily Mail revealed Weaver’s mother Professor Celia Applegate owns a $1.4 million home in Nashville. 

Weaver previously tweeted that ‘homeownership is a weapon of white supremacy’ and that ‘homeownership is racist’ in social media posts that also urged people to ‘impoverish the white middle class.’ 

In another Twitter missive from 2018, she wrote: ‘There is no such thing as “good gentrifier,” only people who are actively working on projects to dismantle white supremacy and capitalism and people who aren’t.’

Weaver further called for the election of communist lawmakers, although publicly she claims to be a member of the far-left Democrat Socialists. 

But the privileged former Bryn Mawr College student’s own parents appear to be among the type of homeowners who she has publicly slammed. 

Weaver’s mother Applegate, a professor of German Studies at Vanderbilt University and her partner David Blackbourn, a professor of history, purchased their home in Music City USA’s Hillsboro West End neighborhood in July 2012 for $814,000, according to county property records.

Since then, its value has soared by nearly $600,000 – a surge in value likely to infuriate Weaver, who has been vocal in her dislike of wealth-building through property ownership.

Her father, who purchased his Rochester residence in 1997 for $180,000, has seen a similar surge in appreciation with the home now valued at more than $516,000.

Despite being a landlord, Mr Weaver has joined his daughter in her fight to combat the housing crisis in New York state.

In his testimony in 2019, urged lawmakers to pass then-proposed Good Cause Eviction law, which prohibits the removal of tenants from their homes without ‘good cause’ and price gouging of monthly rent. The law went into effect in April 2024.

‘It’s clear that we have an eviction crisis in New York State. We have an affordable housing crisis. We have a homelessness crisis in New York State and the City of Rochester and far too many of our local residents are rent burdened,’ Mr Weaver told the assembly.

He argued that rent stabilization is ‘critical to the long term wellbeing of all New Yorkers,’ and claimed that landlords need a ‘stable housing market’ and ‘tenants with secure long term leases.’

Highlighting how he had not raised his tenant’s rent, Mr Weaver added: ‘I have not raised the rent once, and yet, still between the mortgage interest deduction and various other tax deductions that are available to me – and the simple fact that my tenants are covering my mortgage and, in fact, building up my equity in the home –  it isn’t necessary for me to charge rent in excess of the mortgage for this to work to my benefit and, I believe, the benefit of the neighborhood.

‘Landlords should want tenants who have security, who have pride of occupation, who have a vicarious sense of ownership, even in the place where they live, to the extent that they’re willing to live there for a long time. This is in all of our interest.’

It is unclear if Mr Weaver has maintained his stance against increasing tenants’ rents as calls to the professor and the last known residents of his townhouse went unanswered. 

On Wednesday morning, when approached by the Daily Mail near her home, Weaver began running down the street, then said ‘no’ through tears when asked if she wanted to comment on her mother’s ownership of the $1.4 million Nashville property.

She had appeared to be going toward a nearby subway station, but then turned back and ran inside her home, which has a ‘Free Palestine‘ poster taped to one of its windows. 

She was subsequently seen peering out the same window. 

Weaver lives in Crown Heights – a historically black neighborhood where longtime residents have been priced out by white newcomers.

In a press conference on Tuesday, Mamdani said he stood by Weaver, but his team is understood to have been caught by surprise by her anti-white tweets.

Weaver deleted her X account after her old posts were unearthed by anti-woke campaigner Michelle Tandler.  

She attempted to distance herself from them yesterday in a statement that said: ‘Regretful comments from years ago do not change what has always been clear –  my commitment to making housing affordable and equitable for New York’s renters.’

The Trump administration said it is aware of Weaver’s anti-white tweets and warned she faces a federal investigation if any evidence of anti-Caucasian discrimination emerges.

When contacted by the Daily Mail via phone on Tuesday, Weaver said: ‘I can’t talk to you now, but can talk to you later,’ and hung up. She did not respond to a follow-up text sent on Wednesday.

Mayor Mamdani swept to victory in a stunning political upset last November thanks mainly to his vow to tackle the soaring cost of living in New York City.

He vowed to freeze rent on the Big Apple’s one million rent stabilized homes that house around 2.5 million people, 30 percent of the city’s population.