From: "J Reyes-Montblanc" reysmont@yahoo.com
Subject: Pinnacle probed Morgy investigates landlord who's king of evictions
To: "JRM"
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/story/424353p-358061c.html
Pinnacle probed
Morgy investigates landlord who's king of evictions
Juan Gonzalez is a Daily News columnist.
Email: gonzalez@edit.nydailynews.com
Pinnacle Group LLC, the landlord whose aggressive tactics in evicting tenants have been exposed by the Daily News, is now being investigated by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office.
Prosecutors have subpoenaed housing records that Pinnacle filed with the state's Division of Housing and Community Renewal, law enforcement and government sources said this week.
The probe is the latest blow for Pinnacle, one of the city's largest owners of rent-regulated housing.
Last week, state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer asked the DHCR for Pinnacle records on file at the agency.
DHCR also has begun its own review to see whether "there is any pattern of problems with Pinnacle" in overcharging tenants, agency spokesman Peter Moses said yesterday.
Even the Catholic Church is getting involved. Organizers of an affordable-housing rally and march scheduled for Saturday in Washington Heights - an event that will focus on Pinnacle's practices - announced yesterday that Edward Cardinal Egan is expected to speak there.
Assemblyman Vito Lopez (D-Brooklyn), chairman of the Assembly's Housing Committee, told me he plans to hold hearings next month on Pinnacle.
For months, hundreds of angry tenants and neighborhood leaders have claimed that Pinnacle is a virtual eviction mill.
They say Pinnacle systematically harasses and forces out long-term tenants, many of them immigrants, elderly or poor, then illegally charges newcomers far higher rents than permitted by state housing law.
The News has documented many of these horror stories, prompting authorities to act.
Last month, this column revealed that Pinnacle and its various subsidiaries filed an astonishing 5,000 eviction proceedings in Housing Court since January 2004 - nearly one for every four apartments it owns. In some cases, the company sought to evict more than half of a building's residents within months of taking over a property, city records show.
Since then, The News has reported several examples where the DHCR ruled that Pinnacle, after renovating empty apartments, had improperly charged new tenants hundreds of dollars more per month than rent regulations allow.
In some of those cases, after tenants filed protests with the state, the company tried to justify its higher rents by submitting documents to the DHCR claiming thousands of dollars in improvements that were never made.
The agency ordered Pinnacle to sharply cut the rents and refund thousands of dollars to the tenants involved.
Morgenthau's investigators, according to one source, are focusing on documents Pinnacle filed with the state to justify rent increases for individual apartment renovations or for building-wide rent increases, known as an MCI increase.
"We have not been contacted by anyone regarding any investigation," said Ken Fisher, Pinnacle's attorney and a former city councilman. Fisher said he had personally called Spitzer's office after he learned of the attorney general's decision to look into tenant allegations against Pinnacle.
Joel Wiener, Pinnacle's chief executive, says all of Pinnacle's actions are legal and aboveboard. He claims he is spending millions to refurbish slum tenements and thus saving affordable housing.
But it has become clear that Weiner's definition of affordable is out of reach for many of his tenants. Originally published on June 7, 2006
No comments:
Post a Comment