Friday, October 11, 2013

Judge sends slumlord to jail

From the Daily News:

One of the worst landlords in the Bronx is facing jail time after failing to make hundreds of repairs to an apartment building that has fallen into “deplorable” disrepair.

James Caban, the owner of 1547 Commonwealth Ave., was sentenced to 30 days in jail by Bronx Housing Court Judge Jerald Klein after ignoring the city’s requests to make repairs needed to fix up the building.

The judge also issued a warrant for the delinquent landlord's arrest.

Caban had argued he was too broke to be held responsible for the repairs. But he failed to provide evidence to support the poverty defense.

The 12-unit building currently has 308 open violations, making Caban one of the most negligent landlords in the borough — and the building one of the 200 most distressed structures in the city.

Due to Caban’s delinquency, the city has spent approximately $115,000 on emergency repairs, including fixing water leaks, removing lead, and even providing fuel for boilers.

5 comments:

Joe Moretti said...

Wow, it took how many violations, how many years and then only 30 days.

I got a $50 ticket pronto for riding my bike on a sidewalk on Archer
Avenue for a minute because the traffic was bad and it was dangerous.

Something is very wrong with the New York City System.

Anonymous said...

The best sentence ever imprisoned Leonard Spodek (the "Dracula" landlord) in on e of his own units!

Anonymous said...

Put Michael Gallagher and his wife, Helen Gallagher of Woodside, Queens in prison. They're abusive slumlords

Anonymous said...

"Caban had argued he was too broke to be held responsible for the repairs. But he failed to provide evidence to support the poverty defense."

-If one is "too broke' to properly operate a business, especially one that affects the health and safety of it's customers, in this case residents, the building should be seized.

A restaurant operator gets shut down if he/she gets too many critical violations. "Poverty" is no defense in those cases.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Caban should apply for some kind of building or city grant so he can make the improvment, to the building. I am sure if the funds are avaible he would make improvement to the building. Let's hope Mr. Caban will start working on the building now that he is being put out for blast.

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