Woodside CSX tracks are a mess

From CBS 2:

“Here, where it’s a private company and private property, it’s impossible for the city to even get in there,” City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer told Duddridge.

Neighbors are now adding rodents to their list of complaints, saying the animals are running rampant.

“We don’t now want the rats and mice and whatever seeping into our homes and apartments,” said Corrao.

The New York City Department of Sanitation says its cleaning unit inspected the area last month. It says CSX has been notified and has seven to 10 days to either clean up or sanitation crews will at the company’s expense.

There’s still one more hurdle – the sanitation department can’t clean up the property until a judge grants crews a warrant to enter the grounds.

Brown's use of witness warrants comes under fire

From the NY Times:

It is one of law enforcement’s most expansive powers: If the authorities believe that someone has knowledge of a crime, they can — under threat of arrest — force the person to testify in court by obtaining what is known as a material witness warrant.

Unlike normal subpoenas, many, if not most, of which are issued to those directly involved in criminal proceedings, material witness warrants are typically handed out to people who are not under suspicion and are merely in possession of information that the police or prosecutors want.

While the warrants are ostensibly meant to seek the truth and quicken the search for justice, court papers recently filed in a federal lawsuit claim that the Queens district attorney’s office misused a warrant while pursuing a prosecution — a practice that, according to the papers, prosecutors in both Brooklyn and Manhattan have also engaged in occasionally in the last several years.

A sort of legal fail-safe, material witness warrants, which must be signed by judges, are designed to be used in extraordinary circumstances — say, when prosecutors are concerned that a witness might flee or resists taking the stand. Strict rules govern their use: material witnesses can be arrested on a warrant only if they first ignore an order to appear in court, and those detained are required to be presented to a judge and provided with a lawyer. Hearings are supposed to be held to determine what these witnesses know and why they are reluctant to reveal it.

But the court papers say that does not always happen and that the mishandling of the warrants has led to dire consequences for the witnesses themselves, some of whom have been unlawfully held in custody for having done no more than attracted the attention of investigators. The court papers also claim that the misuse of the warrants has harmed defendants, as witnesses compelled by them to testify have at times been coerced into offering false accounts in court.

Settling warrants by dismissing them

From the Daily News:

The de Blasio administration may give amnesty to some of the 1.2 million New Yorkers with outstanding arrest warrants for low-level offenses like drinking in public or disorderly conduct, a report said Sunday.

Under a plan being discussed, those with unresolved warrants would first receive a notification to let them know that they could be arrested. If they come forward, the cases could be tossed, NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton said.

Queens has most illegal conversion complaints

From DNA Info:

Half of city's complaints about illegal apartment conversions or subdivisions are in Queens, prompting an aggressive approach by the Department of Buildings in the borough, according to a representative from the agency.

Nearly all of the warrants the city has filed to force homeowners to allow access to their homes after inspectors repeatedly couldn't gain entry have been in Queens, according to Anthony Iuliano, an intergovernmental liaison for the borough.

"We pursue a more aggressive approach here in Queens county," Iuliano said Oct. 23 at a town hall in Corona sponsored by Assemblyman Francisco Moya, adding that last fiscal year, 272 of the 278 warrants obtained to access homes where there's evidence of conversions were in Queens.

"When [an inspector] made the first attempt and second attempt and they notice there's a one-family home and there's two or three doorbells, it's a one-family home and there's two or three mailboxes... he takes photos and he sits down with borough attorney," he said.

The results of those warrants weren't clear. It's not immediately clear how many additional warrants were filed this year.

Council members order NYPD to ignore the Feds

From the Politicker:

The New York City Council overwhelmingly passed legislation today to stop the Department of Correction and the NYPD from honoring immigration detainers issued by the federal government unless they are accompanied by a judge’s warrant.

The council voted 41 in favor and 6 against on two bills that will largely end cooperation with the federal government when it requests an immigration detainer — which asks Corrections or the NYPD to hold a person for 48 hours when they might otherwise be released so that the person can be handed over the the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency. The requests are often made when an undocumented immigrant is being released from jail for another crime, or if they have been in NYPD custody for questioning.

Under the new legislation, which Mayor Bill de Blasio has said he supports, the city will honor immigration waivers if the federal government requests them with a judge’s warrant — and even then, only if the subject of the warrant was convicted within the last five years of a violent or serious crime, or is a possible match on the terrorism watch list.

So they passed a law that said the NYPD should ignore a federal judge's warrant? And only 2 Queens councilmembers (Vallone and Ulrich) voted against this? Holy crap, we're in big trouble.

Jailing slumlords

From the NY Observer:

Though Joel Loutan has earned a nod in the New York Public Advocate Office’s Worst Landlords Watchlist, he has yet to grab a coveted spot on the site’s “50 Worst Landlords” list. After today, however, it’s likely he will.

Bronx Housing Court recently issued an arrest warrant for Mr. Loutan, a landlord who allowed his building to slip into some of the most “deplorable” conditions seen in the city’s housing units. A collapsed roof, rotten wooden beams, leaking walls and defective boilers rank among the property's most prominent features, Crain's reported.

The building at 1514 East 172nd Street—though just four units large—has racked up over 30 open housing code violations. Though the property was placed in HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program (AEP), which compels owners by law to make the necessary reparations, he has repeatedly defied the city's Orders to Correct. Among those orders included replacement of the roof, re-pointing the exterior walls, re-wiring the entire building, and replacing the heating plant.

But after Mr. Loutan failed to appear in court on numerous occasions to address the charges (his attorney couldn’t seem to find the time either), Bronx County Housing Court Judge Jerald Klein demanded his arrest.

According to Eric Bederman of HPD, Mr. Loutan’s case is only the fifth of its kind in nearly eight years.

It's hard to be a neighbor of Sadik-Khan

From the NY Post:

City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan was so convinced her neighbor was spying on her family with a video camera that she pulled strings at One Police Plaza to get cops to search the man’s apartment, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

Sadik-Khan called Police Headquarters to report that a man living in a high-rise building across the street from her West Village apartment was using a video camera to peep on her and her family, the sources said.

“It looked like a recording device and that’s what spooked her,” a law-enforcement source said.

An NYPD detective was dispatched to Sadik-Kahn’s home earlier this month and looked out the window to see what looked like a video camera in the man’s window.

The detective was satisfied that the device appeared to be a video camera and went to a Manhattan judge, who signed a search warrant allowing cops to search the man’s apartment for the device in his window, the sources said.

“It’s a total invasion of privacy. Are we living in a police state?” said a police source. “Sadik-Khan says, ‘I think he’s got a recording device.’ That’s pretty flimsy.”

When cops searched the man’s apartment, the “video camera” turned out to be a piece of equipment that can’t record anything.

“Why would the DA’s Office and the judge go along with that and sign off on a search warrant?” the police source fumed.

If you or I called the police and claimed something like this, would they even show up to investigate?

Lots of wanted people out there

From the Daily News:

There are now more than 1 million open bench warrants against loiterers, boozers and other petty scofflaws in New York, court records show. And while it’s unclear how many offenders are deceased or carry multiple offenses, the number of outlaws here nearly matches the population of Dallas.

Many may never get pinched for a forgotten or ignored pink slip. But a legal nightmare looms uncomfortably close for countless others.

There were 299,555 open bench warrants in Manhattan alone and another 245,000 in the Bronx at the beginning of May 2012, the latest available tally shows. Brooklyn and Queens had 237,000 and 218,000 respectively, while a mere 30,500 warrants hover above the heads of petty criminals on Staten Island.

The idea of locking so many people up is preposterous to some.

“All of this is a tremendous amount of city resources being spent chasing people for conduct that a reasonable person would hardly view as criminal,” said Stephen Banks, the chief attorney for the Legal Aid Society. “It would make more sense to review the outstanding warrants and clear them - particularly when the underlying alleged conduct is hardly a threat to public safety.”

The NYPD disagrees.

“The Warrant Division pursues individuals wanted for crimes and will arrest a person wanted on a bench warrant during the course of an investigation,” a department spokeswoman said.

“Clearly, we see the police department doing what they’re supposed to be doing,” said Bookstaver. “They’re following up on warrants and having people get their day in court. It’s a civics lesson. A good civics lesson.”

Seto owes more back taxes

From the NY Post:

City Comptroller John Liu’s top political adviser is in hot water again with tax authorities.

The state Department of Taxation and Finance has slapped Chung Seto with a warrant for $25,924 in back taxes.

An agency spokesman said the money Seto owed was from 2008 and 2009.

The warrant was issued on April 24.

The Post previously reported that the IRS is also on Seto’s case, slapping her with liens of $100,871 for 2007 and $74,206 for 2008.

Increase in illegal conversion stings

From the Daily News:

When five people died in two deadly blazes early this year, the Daily News revealed a deadly pattern: city building inspectors investigating complaints of illegal units routinely closed cases after two unsuccessful door knocks.

Mayor Bloomberg ordered an overhaul of the way the city enforces the law, including having uniformed firefighters accompany inspectors when they door-knock suspected firetraps.

In the years leading up to the change, Department of Building inspectors had increasing difficulty gaining access to suspect buildings. Last year the rate reached an all time low of 45%.

Since firefighter started acting as escorts, the rate of success has turned around, with inspectors getting inside 54% of the time - a nine point jump.

That represented a reversal of years of declining rates even as thousands of complaints about illegal apartments continued to roll in every month.

Inspectors also issued violations more often when they got inside - 37% of the time compared to 32% the previous year.

And the city went to court far more often to force landlords to let them in, obtaining special warrants 115 times fiscal 2011. That compares to 67 times the prior year.

So much for the illegal conversion crackdown

From the Daily News:

Faced with two fatal fires at illegal apartments in three weeks, Mayor Bloomberg insists his administration is aggressively attacking the problem in the courts.

He says the city has ratcheted up its effort to get "access warrants," which allow inspectors to get inside suspected firetraps.

But a Daily News investigation found the city's use of this weapon is anemic at best. Reviewing records and visiting dozens of suspect buildings, The News found:

The city pursued warrants in less than 1% of the 20,000 illegal apartment allegations they field each year. Usually inspectors simply close cases after two attempts to get in.

The Buildings Department usually doesn't seek a warrant - even when another city agency has already cited a property for illegal apartments.

When the city does get a warrant, there's often no followup, which allows illegal apartments to remain.

City seeks to protect tenants from sewage

From the Daily News:

Tenants of a rent-stabilized Jamaica building plagued by everything from vermin and mold to little or no running water may have thought they'd seen it all.

They were wrong.

Raw sewage has been piling up in the building's basement since mid-February and spewing into an alleyway, tenants said.

City Department of Housing Preservation and Development officials were refused entry by the superintendent into the building at 88-22 Parsons Blvd. on Tuesday to make emergency repairs. And a Department of Buildings inspector was barred yesterday.

Now, HPD plans to go to court to get a warrant allowing the agency on the property, officials said.

The property has about two dozen open DOB violations and 147 open HPD violations, officials said.