In the latest chapter of the feud between Level 10 Fitness and its North Manhattan Beach neighbors, the neighbors were sent to jail after pleading no contest to violating their probation from an incident in 2012.
Judge Nicole C. Bershon sentenced Cory Mendelsohn and Jared Mitchell to 60 days in jail and two years of probation on Jan. 8 at the Torrance courthouse. She also ordered them to stay one yard away from Level 10 and its patrons and three yards away from its owner, Meredith Miller.
“Gentlemen, I hope I don’t see you again,” said the judge. “Don’t take this personally: I hope this case is resolved. Good luck to you gentlemen.”
The couple stood side by side, glancing at each other as the judge spoke to them. When she was finished, they placed their hands behind their backs as two officers handcuffed them and escorted them out of the courtroom.
Earlier that morning in the same building, the couple was handed a slight legal victory in their second civil lawsuit against the gym when Judge Ramona See rejected Level 10’s request to strike punitive damages, according to the couple’s attorney in the case, Nick Rozansky.
“It’s funny because earlier, the judge found that the conduct of the gym, as alleged in the complaint, rises to a level of malice supporting punitive damages,” said Rozansky, after the men were taken away. “Here, our guys go to jail.”
The tension between the neighbors and the gym began as soon as Mendelsohn and Mitchell moved into their house on 33rd Street a few feet behind Level 10 in 2012. They said they were immediately bothered by the sound and vibration of weights being dropped starting at 6 a.m.
After a confrontation with the gym’s owner, Miller, the situation quickly escalated. Miller and some of her patrons accused the couple of videotaping and harassing them, prompting Miller and a client to file restraining orders against Mitchell and Mendelsohn. Each was arrested on separate occasions last year for violating the restraining orders. Their Jan. 8 sentence was for an alleged violation of their probation resulting from those incidents.
The couple, whose attempt to claim damages from the city for allowing the gym to operate was rejected by the city, has maintained that the city has been biased in favor of the gym. They point to the fact that at least one member of the Manhattan Beach Police Department trains at the gym, which another gym client confirmed.  The city’s Parks and Recreation Department also offers exercise classes through the gym.
Meanwhile, supporters of Level 10 complained at a Sep. 2 city council meeting last year that the police hadn’t pursued action against the couple. Multiple Level 10 supporters spoke, including the client who had filed a restraining order, Jean Vetter. She said that the men had hosed her down and called her “fat.”
“I was told if I ran up the hill it would help,” said Vetter.
Another client, local resident and Fox Sports West TV host Alex Curry, said that the men had yelled at and filmed her and her three sisters.
“For the first time in my life,” Curry told the council, “I did not feel safe in Manhattan Beach.”
Miller, a longtime local personal trainer who has worked with Olympian Misty May-Treanor, implored the council to do something.
“I’m asking you guys with all your heart to help us,” she told the council.
The legal conflict began in 2012 when Mendelsohn sued the gym, its landlord, the former owners of his house and their realty company. The case was settled in August. After Mendelsohn found police reports documenting complaints about noise from the gym from the former owners starting when the gym first opened in 2008, Shorewood Realtors paid him an undisclosed amount. He hired acoustic experts who measured the noise and said that it violated city ordinances. Although the city’s former community development director, Richard Thompson, sent a letter to Miller upon her request saying that the city had no record of the gym ever violating the noise ordinance, Miller’s insurance company dropped her coverage and paid Mendelsohn a six-figure settlement amount. Mendelsohn also found noise complaints from the business that used to rent the space next to Level 10, a radio studio called Static Beach. The gym’s landlord, Chris Bredesen, issued a five-day notice to “perform and cure or quit” in August. However, the gym did not leave and continued to operate as before, according to Mendelsohn.
Mendelsohn filed a second lawsuit against the gym in September.
“The gym went back to its same conduct,” said Rozansky, his lawyer in the case.
Miller then cross-filed a lawsuit against the couple, alleging that they had “interfered with her contractual relations,” according to her lawyer, Tom Mortimer.
At the Torrance courthouse on Jan. 8, Mendelsohn appeared pale and thin. Miller, who was also present, looked haggard.
While waiting outside the courtroom, Mendelsohn said that he had tried to rent his house but so far had been unable. He said that he wouldn’t sell it, because he thought no one would buy it with the gym continuing to operate next door.
“What am I going to do—discount it $1 million?” he asked.
He said that he and Mitchell continued to call the police to make noise complaints and documented each instance in a log.
A little later, his brother, Heath Mendelsohn, sat on the same bench outside the courtroom and offered his perspective.
“This case is notable in that both sides think they’re completely right,” he said.
