Slum Owner Sentenced to 100 Days in His Hotel

The owner of a rat-infested residential hotel near MacArthur Park was ordered Thursday to live in his own decaying building for 100 days, the longest such sentence ever imposed on a Los Angeles slumlord.

Saying that she was shocked by what she had seen at the Palms Wilshire Hotel during an inspection last month, Municipal Judge Suzanne Person instructed Amiya K. Goswami, 54, to stay inside the four-story Alvarado Street building 24 hours a day beginning next Thursday.

The judge also ordered Goswami to follow up his hotel stay with four months in the County Jail if substantial repairs to the building are not completed by July 25.

‘It’s Deplorable’

“I am really pleased about this case because of the length of time the house arrest involves,” said Deputy City Atty. Diane Stepheson. “This is sending such a clear message that this kind of thing is not going to be tolerated. . . . This building is a slum. You have so many tenants who are affected. It’s deplorable.”

Holes are punched in the walls of many of the hotel’s 197 units, paint is chipped and peeling and plumbing fixtures leak, she said. The elevator does not work, rats and roaches run freely through the building and there is no hot water. Doors are defective and smoke detectors don’t work.

Neither Goswami, who lives in Long Beach, nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

But Stepheson said the building was relatively free of problems before Goswami assumed ownership in October, 1986. “It has deteriorated substantially since,” she added.

Goswami repeatedly pledged to fix the problems, Stepheson said, but “absolutely nothing was done.”

Convicted March 1

“He kept maintaining he had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars. . . . I’d send inspectors out. . . . You would have thought he would have done something.”

Thursday’s sentencing followed Goswami’s conviction March 1 on 32 criminal violations of various health, fire, building and safety codes.

Under Person’s court order, Goswami will be fitted with an electronic monitoring device to track his movements once he arrives at the hotel. Unlike other slumlords who have been sentenced to spend time in their own buildings, he will not be permitted to leave his unit even to attend religious services.

“Goswami has virtually ignored his legal responsibilities for over a year and a half and now the time has come for him to begin paying the price for that neglect and indifference,” City Atty. James K. Hahn said of the sentence.

Before Goswami, convicted slumlord Aaron G. Kempe of Beverly Hills had held the record for the longest house arrest in a slum case. Kempe, 63, ended a 45-day stay in his 8th Street hotel on March 13.