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324 Central the building in the article:
https://www.google.com/maps/@40.695463,-73.920549,3a,75y,217.8h,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s5jzN4HMkhRfExspOPvD5hA!2e0
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/nyregion/brooklyn-landlords-joel-and-aaron-israel-arrested.html?_r=0
One morning in February 2014, Silveria Hormiga, who lived at 324 Central Avenue in Bushwick, a rapidly gentrifying area of Brooklyn, left for a doctor’s appointment.
By the time she returned at 11 a.m., it appeared that her apartment had undergone some rapid changes as well.
“Upon gaining entry,” said an indictment unsealed on Thursday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, she “observed that the apartment was destroyed — the kitchen and bathroom were demolished and rendered unusable.”
In what prosecutors and New York City officials described as a particularly egregious example of tenant hounding, the owners, Joel and Aaron Israel, who are brothers, were arrested on Thursday on charges that they intentionally wrecked tenants’ apartments at 324 Central and other buildings to try to drive residents out and also lied to city officials about the work they were doing.
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The kitchen was demolished as part of a renovation that has yet to be completed.
Tenants Living Amid Rubble in Rent-Regulated Apartment WarFEB. 24, 2014
In court on Thursday afternoon, Joel Israel, 34, and Aaron Israel, 37, pleaded not guilty to seven charges, including fraud, burglary, grand larceny, submitting false documents and unlawful eviction. Judge Danny K. Chun set bail at $75,000 for the younger Mr. Israel, and $50,000 for his brother.
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The Fight for 98 Linden
The Fight for 98 Linden
After 23 years of living in their rent-stabilized apartment, Noelia Calero and her family are fighting to stay. The landlord, they say, is using intimidating tactics to push them out.
By Mona El-Naggar on Publish Date February 24, 2014. Photo by Dave Sanders for The New York Times.
The prosecution of landlords is rare, but the case follows years of complaints at several buildings owned by the Israels. Rent-stabilized tenants, who often pay below-market rents and are guaranteed renewal of their leases under state law, have accused the Israels of creating hazardous conditions to force them to leave, so their units could be rented out at much higher rates.
“It’s time for law enforcement to step up,” the Brooklyn district attorney, Kenneth P. Thompson, said. “We can no longer let these matters linger in Housing Court.”
At 98 Linden Street, another Israel building in Bushwick, a worker destroyed the kitchens and bathrooms of two ground-floor apartments with a sledgehammer in June 2013, taking down a wall that divided the apartments in the process. Although the landlords said the work was necessary for repairs, and would be done in three weeks, it took 17 months and the hiring of a lawyer for the apartments to be returned to a usable condition, the indictment says.
The most serious charge, second-degree burglary, carries a maximum prison term of 15 years. It was based on what prosecutors called the illegal entry into the apartment at 324 Central. Although that tenant never returned, those at 98 Linden stayed, using a bathroom on the second floor or ones at area restaurants and laundromats.
Mr. Thompson said the grand larceny charges related to depriving the tenants of basic services and stealing the value of their homes. At 98 Linden, he said, the Israels went as far as having an employee, supposedly hired to provide security, intimidate tenants with two pit bulls and by blasting music at early-morning hours.
“I have four children, and they left me on the street,” Ms. Hormiga said in Spanish. “We suffered a lot.”
But a celebratory mood reigned on Thursday as Mr. Thompson, joined by the tenants and other city officials, held a news conference in front of 98 Linden. “We’re overwhelmed with joy that finally they are going to get what they deserve,” said Noelia Calero, a tenant.
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In three buildings, including 324 Central, the Israels also filed renovation plans with the city that said, falsely, that no tenants would be around during the work, the indictment says.
Photo
Aaron Israel, left, and his brother Joel Israel before their arraignment on Thursday. They pleaded not guilty to seven charges. Credit Bryan R. Smith for The New York Times
At the arraignment, an assistant district attorney, Gavin Miles, said the Israels gained between $60,000 and $150,000 by illegally pushing out tenants paying $650 to $1,000 a month and replacing them with others paying upward of $3,500.
Mr. Miles also accused the Israels of obfuscation, saying it was not until last week that the “district attorney’s office found out where these brothers laid their heads at night.”
A lawyer for the brothers, Kevin Keating, denied the charges and said Joel Israel had lived in the same place for three years, and Aaron Israel for 12 years.
Mr. Keating said that Joel Israel had no criminal history but that Aaron Israel had been placed under court supervision for a “minor role” in a car dealership insurance fraud scheme 10 years ago. He described the two brothers as important figures in the Hasidic community and loving fathers, pointing to their wives, who sat silently in the second row of the courtroom.
“I’ve never seen an indictment like this,” Mr. Keating said. “Charging burglary in a case of this nature is astonishing.”
Mr. Thompson said that the Israels’ office records were seized on Thursday and that he would seek to identify “everybody in this scheme” for prosecution.
Frank Ricci, an official with the landlord group Rent Stabilization Association of New York, said that the Israels’ case was exceptional and that government officials should have gone after the landlords sooner. “If it’s true,” he said, “it’s outrageous that it took government this long to do something about this.”
The State Tenant Protection Unit last year served a subpoena on JBI Management, whose principals are Joel and Aaron Israel, to force it to produce records related to rent rolls and business practices for 10 Brooklyn buildings that the company owns in Bushwick, Greenpoint and Williamsburg. The unit, which turned over its findings to the district attorney, was established by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who, in announcing the subpoena last year, held up the wrecking at 98 Linden as an example of “egregious harassment.”
Officials with the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development, which had already sued Joel Israel over building code violations, went to Housing Court last year to remove him from managing 98 Linden and to request that a judge appoint an independent administrator for the property. Mr. Israel, however, agreed to pay $15,000 in civil penalties and to repair the kitchens and bathrooms. The work was completed in December.
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