bogus eviction

Subject: Re: bogus eviction

pitu wrote: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/landlords-eviction-trick-backfires-investigators-say/

NYTimes November 16, 2007, 6:29 pm
Landlord Eviction Trick Backfired, Investigators Say

By Sewell Chan

Landlord-tenant hostility is nothing new in New York City, but investigators said today that a Brooklyn landlord, Oludola Johnson, took things to a new and illegal level.

On Sept. 4, Mr. Johnson, who owns a three-story apartment building at 714 St. Mark’s Avenue in Crown Heights, attached a fraudulent, altered copy of a city marshal’s eviction notice to the apartment door of one of his tenants and then changed the locks on the door, according to the city’s Department of Investigation.

The notice looked like the genuine article: It said “MARSHAL’S LEGAL POSSESSION” and carried the name, badge number and office address of Norman Katz, one of the city’s 44 marshals. The notice said that Mr. Katz had transferred “legal possession” of the apartment from the tenant to Mr. Johnson.

But Mr. Johnson ran into a problem, officials said: his tenant — who had admitted to being behind on her rent — saw her landlord put up the notice. Her suspicions aroused, she removed the notice from the door and brought it to Mr. Katz’s office. Mr. Katz’s staff told her he had never issued such a notice. In fact, Mr. Katz had nothing to do with the matter.

It turns out, officials said, that Mr. Johnson had altered a copy of an eviction notice that Mr. Katz had issued more than a year earlier — on May 26, 2006 — and left on the door of another tenant in building. (Warrants of eviction are issued by Housing Court and enforced by the marshals.)

Mr. Johnson, 36, of Brooklyn, was charged with criminal possession of a forged instrument (one felony count and one misdemeanor count) and unlawful eviction, a misdemeanor. If convicted, he faces up to seven years in prison.

As of this afternoon, Mr. Johnson was still in custody and had not been arraigned. No number could be found for him through directory assistance. There was no answer at a telephone number in Brooklyn that has been associated with Mr. Johnson in public records.