Slumlord Posts Bail in New Jersey, Disappears

The city’s worst slumlord, captured by the FBI in New Jersey last week after more than seven months on the lam, failed to appear at a court hearing Monday and is believed to be a fugitive again, prosecutors said.

Vijaynard Sharma, 41, was scheduled to appear in Camden County Court to waive extradition and return to Los Angeles, where he faces at least 20 months in jail and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines for housing code violations.

But unknown to Los Angeles city and county authorities, who were preparing to pick up Sharma, a Camden County judge on Friday set bail in the Los Angeles cases at $20,000.

Faced Bails of $2.65 Million

The judge apparently was unaware of four outstanding arrest warrants against Sharma with bails totaling $2.65 million. Sharma--who is said to have received as much as $90,000 a month from tenants living in his run-down buildings--had no problem posting the $20,000 bail.

Los Angeles prosecutors familiar with his track record are assuming the worst: Sharma is on the run again.

“We heard about it at 9:45 this (Monday) morning. I was pretty surprised and a little angry,” said Deputy City Atty. Stephanie Sautner, who heads the office’s Housing Enforcement Section. “This guy’s got quite a few lives. He slipped through the cracks again.”

Sautner said the system broke down when federal authorities transferred custody to New Jersey officials late last week. The FBI had been holding Sharma on a no-bail federal warrant. But that warrant was dropped once Sharma was placed in the custody of New Jersey officials, an FBI spokesman said.

“Once he was turned over to local authorities, our warrant no longer applies,” said John Kundts, special agent in the FBI’s Philadelphia office, which oversaw Sharma’s arrest last Wednesday.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn said he assumed that the no-bail federal warrant would hold until Monday’s court appearance, giving his office time to set up extradition.

“We believed that it was a no-bail situation,” Hahn said. “We didn’t feel he could be released on any bail. That was our understanding. It turns out that that was erroneous.”

An immigrant from the Fiji Islands who once owned as many as 18 residential hotels and apartment buildings in Los Angeles, Sharma dropped out of sight last Jan. 15 shortly before he was to begin serving a jail sentence for a probation violation. He was cited after investigators discovered serious fire code violations at his 167-room Cameo Hotel in Westlake after a suspected arson fire last April.

Sharma, described by Hahn as the city’s worst slumlord, faces a 20-month jail sentence and a $153,000 fine in a separate case in which he was convicted of 112 misdemeanor housing code violations in five rat-infested residential buildings. In addition, he is a defendant in eight other slum-related cases pending in Los Angeles Municipal Court.