Slumlord’s Relative Charged With Building Violations

The brother of Vijaynand Sharma, dubbed by prosecutors the city’s “worst slumlord,” was charged Thursday with 26 criminal counts of operating a rat-infested, heatless and filthy 30-unit apartment building in the Westlake district.

Devanand Sharma, 38, will be arraigned March 22 in Los Angeles Municipal Court. He owns a building in a troubled neighborhood that City Atty. James K. Hahn claims has been turned into a “nest of slums” by a small cadre of greedy landlords.

Devanand Sharma is the younger brother of fugitive slumlord Vijaynand Sharma, 43, who fled the city in January, 1988, after being sentenced to serve 23 months in jail and pay $153,000 in fines. He was convicted of dozens of housing code violations involving 18 slum apartments and run-down motels.

“You would think he would have learned from the mistakes of his brother,” said Deputy City Atty. Richard Bobb, who is handling the case against Devanand Sharma. Instead, Bobb said, Devanand Sharma followed his brother’s example, neglecting the building at 737 S. Westlake Ave. to the point of “making it really disgusting.”

Neither Devanand Sharma nor his attorney could be reached for comment.

Bobb said the apartment, which is fully occupied with mostly Latino families, was “at one time a very nice building--brick with molding on the sides, columns at the entrance way. But inside it’s just filled with rodents and roaches, falling plaster, leaking plumbing, peeling paint. It has not been maintained for many, many years.”

Bobb said the needed repairs “should have been covered by the rents, if they had been done on a normal basis. But he didn’t fix the apartments and now these things become huge problems.”

In a statement, Hahn added, “Problems like broken windows and no heat create deplorable living conditions for tenants at any time, but it’s particularly inhumane at this time of year.”

Hahn’s office has targeted a four-block stretch of South Westlake Avenue, with the aim of preventing landlords from driving the area into further decay, Bobb said. He said the city’s Health, Fire and Building and Safety departments are watching the street, and all have cited Sharma in recent months.

Sharma is the fourth landlord in the neighborhood to face criminal charges under the city’s aggressive Housing Enforcement Task Force program, city officials said.

The others include Luis P. Guerrero, 47, of Monterey Park, who was fined $6,400 for operating a slum building; thrice-convicted slumlord Timothy Michael Preis, 39, of Northridge, who prosecutors say has ignored a series of city orders to clean up his 81-unit apartment, and convicted slumlord William Burkhalter, 57, of Los Angeles, who allegedly has failed to make city-ordered repairs on one of two buildings he owns on South Westlake Avenue.

Hahn said the younger Sharma has been sole owner of the Westlake building for 12 years, but he previously owned it in partnership with his brother.

As for Vijaynand Sharma, Bobb said, “Nobody knows where he is.”

“He was believed seen in Scotland, and (in September, 1988) he was caught in New Jersey, but he was accidentally released before we could get him. I still have a whole thick file on him right here.”