NYC Landlord's Illegal Three-Pronged Strategy To Boot Long-Time, Rent-Regulated Tenants & Replace Them With Rich, High-Paying Renters

In New York City, The Real Deal (NYC) reports:

• Manhattan landlord Steve Croman deregulated 390 apartments in the last five years and commonly used a “three-pronged strategy” to remove rent-stabilized tenants from his buildings, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
  
  Croman was arrested in May and charged with 20 felonies including grand larceny and scheme to defraud his lenders. According to Bloomberg, Croman’s strategy involved filing frivolous lawsuits against tenants to sap their monetary strength; then hiring a bruising ex-cop to harass and intimidate them; and finally, creating conditions so squalid and unsafe that tenants would leave.
  
  Although those tactics are not necessarily uncommon in the real estate industry, New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman sued Croman in May for allegedly resorting to those illegal methods at his properties, which tally 140 buildings in Manhattan. An analysis from Stabilizing NYC, a pro-tenant housing group, found that Croman deregulated 390 units in the last five years.
  
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  Croman — who by 2010 owned more than 100 buildings and regularly appeared in Page Six for ostentatious displays of wealth — is currently out on a $500,000 cash bail and facing up to 25 years in prison.

For more, see Steve Croman used “three-prong strategy” to remove rent-stabilized tenants: report (Disgraced landlord allegedly filed frivolous suits and followed up with intimidation tactics to oust renters).

See also, Bloomberg: Out With the Poor, In With the Rich: The Landlord’s Guide to Gentrifying NYC (Steve Croman has spent decades exploiting rent-control laws to bring in wealthier tenants. The state attorney general wants to make an example of him).