A New York City landlord is expected to be taken into custody a second time for failing to make hundreds of court-ordered repairs, months after he was arrested for the unsafe conditions in his buildings.
Manhattan Judge Jack Stoller said in an afternoon court conference Monday that he will issue a new arrest warrant for Daniel Ohebshalom, sending him back to Rikers Island for not making sufficient progress on a long list of needed repairs at two crumbling apartment buildings he owns in Washington Heights, Gothamist reported.
“Fixing leak damage without fixing the source of the leak is really not solving the problem,” Stoller said at the conference, adding that the order would come either Monday or Tuesday.
Ohebshalom, who was previously jailed for 60 days back in March for failing to make repairs at the same buildings, is currently listed as No. 1 on the public advocate’s annual ‘worst landlord’ watchlist. He was reportedly assaulted shortly after arriving at Rikers Island.
Judge Stoller’s action would mark an escalation in the court’s efforts to hold Ohebshalom accountable for the unsafe properties at 705 and 709 W. 170th St. Stoller issued an arrest warrant for Ohebshalom last month but said he would not order the city sheriff’s office to enforce it until Monday’s hearing, giving the landlord and his associates time to make more repairs.
Ohebshalom’s attorney Vladimir Mironenko urged Stoller not to order the arrest. “Work is being done every single day,” he said at the conference. “Someone’s freedom is at stake, someone who has already served 60 days in jail.”
Yet attorneys for the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and the organization Manhattan Legal Services said the work completed at the two properties was merely cosmetic and intended to give the appearance of improvements without fixing the underlying problems, such as chronic hot water outages and crumbling walls.
“Tenants in 705 (West 170th) don’t have hot water as of today,” said Manhattan Legal Services lawyer Ashley Viruet, who represents the tenants. “It’s a continual slap of paint, a continual filing of papers that don’t change our clients’ lives.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg also charged Ohebshalom earlier this year with various criminal offenses for allegedly harassing tenants in rent-stabilized apartments, falsifying business records and endangering the welfare of a child.
According to HPD data, Ohebshalom has yet to resolve 320 open violations at the properties.
