DOWNTOWN : Slumlord Must Make Repairs or Go to Jail
A convicted slumlord who had just completed serving 30 days under house arrest in his own hotel has been given another month to repair his building or else go to jail, officials said.
It was the second time that Chung Chuan Wang missed a deadline to bring the Modoc Hotel, 819 S. Towne Ave., up to standard housing codes, said Deputy City Atty. Lawrence P.V. Punter.
Wang, who pleaded no contest in March to 10 counts of fire, health and building and safety code violations, first failed to make the repairs in June.
Los Angeles Municipal Judge Barry Taylor subsequently found Wang in violation of his probation and ordered him to serve 30 days under house arrest.
The owner again was found in violation of probation after a July 28 hearing in which Taylor reviewed photographs showing continued slum conditions, including dilapidated floor tiles and ceilings and defective plumbing in some of the 76 rooms inside the two-story brick hotel.
The deputy city attorney asked Taylor to sentence Wang to 30 days in County Jail and 250 hours of community service for the violation probation. But the judge settled for giving the owner until Sept. 28 to fix the hotel while “holding the jail time over his head,” Punter said.
Wang’s attorney, Bernard Talmas, declined to comment on the case.
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