City Files 20 New Counts on Landlord

The owner of a rodent-infested Los Angeles apartment house whose tenants have been plagued with rat and insect bites was charged Thursday with 20 criminal health and safety code violations in a continuing legal campaign to clean up the building.

The criminal complaint filed against Los Angeles attorney Lance Jay Robbins, owner of the 35-unit building at 801 S. Union Ave., and eight others targeted for civil action by the city, alleges that Robbins has failed to make required improvements despite a court order issued earlier this month when tenants filed a $10-million lawsuit.

“Basically, it’s a filthy place,” City Atty. James Hahn said. “A lot of cockroaches, just hundreds of them all over the building, trash piled up in stairwells, trash in the basement, inoperable fire doors--it was clear that significant progress was not being made in that building.”

The alleged violations each carry a maximum penalty of $20,000 or 10 years in jail.

Robbins, 38, said he has already fumigated the building, installed security bars and doors, put in fire equipment and patched up walls in response to the court order. The remainder of the work should be completed by today, he said.

“I have been continuing to fix up that building and get these things completed. The work is pretty close to done,” said Robbins, complaining that in a meeting only last week, city inspectors told him they believed that the work was progressing well.

But Nancy Mintie, an attorney representing the tenants’ group, complained that the repairs have been halfhearted at best.

Even after the fumigation, she said, “the tenants showed me traps with roaches over an inch long. And he hasn’t exterminated for rodents at all.” Moreover, the security bars installed on the windows do not open from the inside, she said, creating “an enormous fire trap.”

A total of nine Los Angeles apartment buildings with 140 units owned by Robbins are the subject of a civil suit filed by the city attorney in 1984. Delays in bringing that suit to trial prompted the current criminal investigation, Hahn said.

An arraignment on the criminal charges is set for July 10, but Robbins won a delay until July 18 in a hearing to determine whether a permanent court order should be issued in the tenants’ case against him.

Superior Court Judge Warren Deering, in granting the delay on Thursday, emphasized that Robbins still must meet today’s deadline for cleaning up the building or face possible contempt charges.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, a county employee who owns two apartment buildings and a hotel in central Los Angeles was ordered to pay almost $10,000 in fines and restitution stemming from slum conditions, the city attorney’s office announced.

Robert Swan, 55, of Pasadena, an employee of the county Facilities Management Department, had pleaded no contest to 30 misdemeanor violations of fire, health and building codes at the 68-room St. Agnes Hotel in the Skid Row district and two three-story apartment buildings at 811 S. Union Ave. and 1327 Wright St.

Also, an appeal by Hollywood landlord Rosemary Martin of her 1983 conviction on 28 slum condition counts has been denied by the Superior Court Appellate Department, authorities announced. Martin, 39, faces up to 10 months in jail for criminal violations at her apartment buildings at 1748-1750 1/2 W. 24th St., 8663-8671 S. Main St. and 120-120 1/2 E. 68th St., all in South-Central Los Angeles; and at 5315 Blackwelder St. in Southwest Los Angeles, the city attorney’s office said.