Granada Hills : Landlord Charged With Swindling

The landlord of a Granada Hills house who allegedly collected nearly $6,000 in illegal side payments from a couple displaced after the 1994 Northridge earthquake was charged with swindling the city’s Housing Authority, authorities said.

Janos Dub, 46, of Oxnard was charged Wednesday with one count each of grand theft and theft through false pretenses for allegedly taking $5,918 from a Northridge couple between February 1994 and April 1995, Deputy City Atty. Deborah Sanchez said.

Dub faces up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine on each count, she said.

Dub, also known as John Dub and John Friend, rented his Granada Hills home to the Northridge couple, their three children and a blind, disabled parent after they lost their apartment in the quake, Sanchez said. The couple paid the rent plus additional side payments with emergency federal assistance money they received from the city Housing Authority.

The Housing Authority began investigating Dub after receiving a complaint from an official with San Fernando Legal Services Inc. in Van Nuys, where the couple sought help after being threatened with eviction if they did not continue to pay at least $700 more each month, Sanchez said.

The couple said they were afraid the elderly parent “would get more seriously ill or would die” if they didn’t make the payments, Sanchez said.

“This is one of the more egregious [examples of fraud] that I’ve seen,” she said.

Dub is scheduled to be arraigned Feb. 13 at Los Angeles Municipal Court.