Apartment Owner Charged With More Code Violations

The city attorney’s office has charged a Woodland Hills man with 30 new health and safety violations for an apartment building in the MacArthur Park area, authorities said Wednesday.

Ricardo Appling, 50, was charged Tuesday with the misdemeanor counts for allegedly failing to maintain safe and habitable conditions at the three-story, 37-unit apartment building at 615 S. Virgil Ave., prosecutors said.

Appling is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 14 in Los Angeles Municipal Court. Authorities said he also faces a retrial in another case in which he was charged with 33 violations at the apartment complex.

Assistant City Atty. Michael R. Wilkinson said the new charges were filed after building inspectors found Appling had not made necessary repairs to his property.

Appling acquired the building in August 1998, Wilkinson said. A short time later, the Slum Housing Task Force began a series of inspections that uncovered violations including broken windows, leaky plumbing, raw sewage, missing guardrails, uncapped waste lines, exposed electrical wires, torn carpeting, broken fire doors and blocked fire exits.

The city attorney’s office ordered Appling to attend a hearing explaining the code violations and required repairs, Wilkinson said. He later was charged with the initial 33 violations after allegedly failing to comply with repair orders issued by the Slum Housing Task Force.

Appling became the owner of the property after Eric Thompson Whitaker, 54, and Andrew Samuel Cohen, 42, both of Silver Lake, lost control of it to a court-appointed receiver.

Whitaker was ordered to pay $8,145 in fines and costs after he pleaded no contest in August 1998 to 10 violations of fire, health and building and safety codes.