D.A.’s Tenant Protection Unit Brings New York’s First-Ever Harassment of Rent-Regulated Tenants Prosecution Under New Law
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, Jr. and DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber today announced the indictment of DANIEL OHEBSHALOM aka DAN SHALOM (“SHALOM”), along with his companies KEYSTONE MANAGEMENT, INC.; LIBERTY VENTURES, LLC; HIGHPOINT ASSOCIATES XII, LLC; and BELMONT VENTURES, LLC, for harassing rent-regulated tenants with horrific living conditions in order to induce them to vacate their apartments and enable him to sell the buildings for significant profit. SHALOM also filed false documents with city agencies to conceal his ownership of those buildings and evade responsibility for harassing his tenants.
SHALOM and his companies are charged in a New York State Supreme Court indictment with multiple charges of Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, and Endangering the Welfare of a Child. [1]
“As alleged, Daniel Ohebshalom took advantage of rent-regulated tenants living in five Manhattan apartment buildings by creating dangerous living conditions in an effort to push them out. New Yorkers deserve to live in their apartments without fearing for their safety,” said District Attorney Bragg. “Landlords have the responsibility to ensure tenants’ safety. We urge anyone who believes they may be a victim of this sort of fraud to contact our Housing and Tenant Protection Unit at 212-335-3300 or Danyhousing@dany.nyc.gov.”
DOI Commissioner Jocelyn E. Strauber said, “This defendant created unlivable and dangerous conditions for the tenants in his rent-regulated apartments, a pattern of neglect that was intended to push them out, according to the charges. DOI is proud to partner with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and to work with its Housing and Protection Unit on this important case. Together we will not hesitate to pursue criminal charges against landlords who flout the City’s housing and safety codes, leaving tenants in unacceptable circumstances.”
According to court documents and statements made on the record, SHALOM owns five Manhattan properties, including:
- 331 East 14th Street
- 410 West 46 Street
- 412 West 46 Street
- 705 West 170 Street
- 709 West 170 Street
SHALOM allegedly neglected the buildings with the intended goal of systematically driving out the rent-regulated tenants from their homes so that he could sell the buildings for significant profits.
Each of the five buildings for which false documents were filed had unaddressed violations and dangerous conditions. These conditions included a lack of heat and hot water in the winter months; leaks that persisted without repair and ultimately caused ceilings to collapse, including on a young child; and building front doors that lacked locks and other security measures.
SHALOM was warehousing unsecured vacant apartments and failed to provide the buildings with necessary heat, despite repeated warnings from the fuel delivery service that the amount of oil ordered was insufficient to heat the properties.
SHALOM neglected the buildings and lied about their ownership with the intent of driving rent regulated tenants from their homes. He openly discussed with business partners his strategy of “engineering vacancies” of rent regulated apartments. In doing so, he could combine, renovate, and set, higher rents for those units, or empty the building entirely. In either scenario, the building would command a higher price if sold. Consistent with this goal, SHALOM contracted with a real estate firm to sell adjacent buildings at 410 and 412 West 46th Street. In 2015, there was a fire at 412 West 46th Street, and the building had remained uninhabited since then. The buildings were jointly offered for sale at a price of $11.7 million.
SHALOM’s buildings were regularly cited by city agencies for unsafe conditions, requiring that a responsible party file paperwork certifying that the conditions had been corrected. SHALOM obscured his ownership of the properties by refusing to sign paperwork that was required to be filed with the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development (“HPD”) as a person responsible for the properties. Instead, he used a business associate’s two young employees to sign the documents as responsible persons for the properties. In doing so, SHALOM thwarted HPD’s enforcement efforts, prolonging the neglectful conditions within SHALOM’s buildings. In addition, tenants seeking redress for the numerous habitability issues, relied on the falsely filed documents and named individuals, who in fact, had no connection to the buildings, rather than SHALOM, ensuring the failure of their efforts.
Manhattan D.A.’s Housing & Tenant Protection Unit
In October 2022, District Attorney Bragg launched the Office’s first-ever Housing & Tenant Protection Unit, which targets systemic criminal harassment of tenants and abuse of government programs by landlords and developers. Areas of focus are harassment of rent-regulated tenants, deed fraud, and defrauding of government subsidy programs by landlords and developers. The Unit focuses on long-term investigations into systemic, structures, and organized criminal activity among landlords and developers.
Tips and complaints can be submitted to the Unit’s hotline at 212-335-3300 or email Danyhousing@dany.nyc.gov. The Office is a safe place to report crime regardless of your immigration status.
Assistant D.A.s Chikaelo Ibeabuchi (Chief of the Housing & Tenant Protection Unit), and Hope Korenstein (Deputy Bureau Chief of the Financial Frauds Bureau) are handling the prosecution of this case under the supervision of Assistant D.A.s Kofi Sansculotte (Bureau Chief of the Financial Frauds Bureau) and Jodie Kane (Bureau Chief of the Rackets Bureau and Acting Chief of the Investigation Division). The following people provided assistance with this investigation: the Financial Frauds Bureau’s Lana Wong (Senior Financial Investigator), Sofia Albi (Paralegal), Emily O’Brien (Investigative Analyst), and Victoria Grevenberg (Housing Coordinator); the Forensic Accounting & Financial Investigations Bureau’s Hermeet Kaur (Principal Financial Investigator), Irene Serrapica (Principal Deputy Bureau Chief), and Robert Demarest (Bureau Chief); Investigation Bureau’s Samuel Morales (Investigator), Ethan Ellsworth (Investigator), Genesis Cornielle (Investigator), Daniel Clark-El (Supervising Investigator) and Jonathan Reid (Assistant Chief of the Investigation Bureau); New York City Department of Investigation’s Emily Caswell (Investigator), and Michael Morris (Inspector General, Squad 3).
District Attorney Bragg thanked the Department of Investigation for its assistance.
Defendant Information
DANIEL OHEBSHALOM aka DAN SHALOM
Charges:
- Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, a class E felony, eight counts
- Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony, twenty-nine counts
- Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a class A misdemeanor, three counts
KEYSTONE MANAGEMENT, INC.
Charges:
- Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, a class E felony, eight counts
- Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony, twenty-nine counts
- Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a class A misdemeanor, three counts
LIBERTY VENTURES, LLC
Charges:
- Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, a class E felony, two counts
- Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony, six counts
HIGHPOINT ASSOCIATES XII, LLC
Charges:
- Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, a class E felony, two counts
- Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony, eleven counts
BELMONT VENTURES, LLC
Charges:
- Harassment of a Rent Regulated Tenant in the First Degree, a class E felony, four counts
- Offering a False Instrument for Filing in the First Degree, a class E felony, twelve counts
- Endangering the Welfare of a Child, a class A misdemeanor, three counts
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[1] The charges contained in the indictment are merely allegations, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. All factual recitations are derived from documents filed in court and statements made on the record in court.