A judge ordered a notorious Brooklyn slumlord to spend 12 days in jail – probably the only place worse than one of his crumbling rat shacks.
In an extremely rare penalty for a landlord, Olufemi Falade will be sent to the slammer for failing to repair hundreds of violations in his buildings – including vermin infestations, exposed wires and leaking pipes – the city announced yesterday outside one of his violation-laden properties in Flatbush.
“In just 12 buildings he owns, there are more than 1,800 violations of the city’s housing and maintenance codes,” said Housing Preservation and Development Commissioner Shaun Donovan.
“This owner is perhaps one of the most egregious examples we’ve seen citywide of flouting the law and forcing his residents to live in horrible conditions.”
Donovan claimed the city has had to shell out $175,000 in emergency repairs on Falade’s crumbling apartment buildings.
He added that 80 of 322 violations at 1122 New York Ave., where yesterday’s announcement was made, were deemed “immediately hazardous” and cost the city $17,000 in emergency repairs.
And when the commissioner announced the jail time – adding that Falade is one of only four landlords locked up for refusing to correct building violations in the last three years – tenants who pay upward of $700 a month for their one-bedroom apartments broke into applause.
“We have to live a whole winter with no hot water,” fumed former tenant Victoria Rivera, 25, who left her mother’s apartment in the 27-unit building last August. “We have to look up . . . and see broken ceilings – bathrooms not running.”
Her mother, Evelyn, who still lives in the building, added, “He deserves every bit of what he gets.”
The lousy landlord’s misdeeds didn’t stop with refusing to fix his properties, tenants said.
He told the city that an 85-year-old tenant named Andrea Durival, who speaks only Creole, was the superintendent at 1122 New York Ave., neighbors and Donovan said, because she occasionally sweeps the sidewalk and mops the hallway for a rent rebate.
“It’s that kind of treatment we’ve gotten from him, a complete disrespect and a lack of fulfillment of his legal and, frankly, moral obligations,” Donovan said.
Last year, the city brought Falade to Civil Court and he agreed to fix the violations and pay $6,000 in fines. But after six months, most of the violations had not been corrected. A deadline was imposed and an additional $50,000 in penalties was ordered.
When the deadline passed and the violations had not been fixed, the landlord of nearly 100 apartments was sentenced to jail time for civil contempt.