[5th Street buildings that were part of Raphael Toledano's portfolio]
New York Attorney General Letitia James announced a court victory yesterday against notorious East Village landlord Raphael Toledano.
An order by the New York Supreme Court bars Toledano from engaging in any New York real-estate business activity for at least five years, at which point he can petition the court for re-entrance.
Per a release from the AG's office:
This decision comes after Toledano repeatedly violated a 2019 agreement with the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) that required him to stop harassing New York City tenants and stop engaging in illegal and predatory real-estate practices.
"New York tenants can breathe more easily knowing that Rafi Toledano is no longer in the real estate business," said James. "Through his deceptive and illegal actions, Toledano caused incredible pain and suffering to hundreds of vulnerable families, who are still feeling the effects of his harassment today. Every New Yorker deserves to live in a safe, decent home free of abuse and fear."Here's some of what James found from her previous investigation:
" ... established that Toledano engaged in a pattern of fraudulent and illegal conduct throughout his work as a landlord and real estate developer. Toledano harassed tenants in the East Village through coercive buyouts and illegal construction practices, and failed to provide his rent-regulated tenants with utilities, repairs, and other necessary services.
Toledano also engaged in deceptive business practices in his real-estate transactions, including repeatedly and persistently misrepresenting himself as a lawyer and advertising apartments with three or four bedrooms, when legally the apartment could have one or two bedrooms only."The AG's office outlined how Toledano violated his 2019 agreement:
- Failing to disclose his real-estate business activities to the independent monitor or to get the monitor's approval for further deals
- Diverting funds from a reserve account established by the agreement
- Failing to make penalty payments (other than initial payments totaling $520,000)
- Failing to maintain his properties in a manner that complied with applicable laws and protected tenants' rights, health, and safety.
It's not immediately clear how many properties Toledano still owns.
Last May, Madison Realty Capital (MRC) closed on Toledano's bankrupt East Village portfolio. Toledano had received $124 million in cash and lines of credit from MRC to finance his $97 million purchase of the buildings.
Toledano purchased 28 buildings in two separate portfolios from the Tabak family for a total of $140 million in 2015. Experienced real-estate players raised red flags about Toledano's heavy reliance on debt.
In an interview with The Real Deal in June 2016, Toledano, then 26, made "frat-tastic boasts about his wealth," including: "I'm worth a fuckload of money, bro."
19 comments:
landlord Raphael Toledano found guilty of crimes gets to continue being a douche without prison time.
Madison Real Estate hired him and they're still out there fucking over tenants
How is he not in jail?!?
So pleased Letitia James is on this worm. Now he's worth a fuckload of trouble and legal fees.
And his name will always be synonymous with being a douche, a liar and a loser.
FYI, New York's AG has criminal jurisdiction only in a relatively limited set of cases. Any criminal action would likely have to be taken by either the New York County DA (Alvin Bragg) or DOJ. So this is James doing what she can.
Great if they could take a 'fuckload of money' away from him, bro!
@Sarah
thanks for the info.
Fuckload of hubris
In NYC People don't go to jail for anything anymore. Once a month they will be required to attend a Zoom meeting to receive counseling with a Gov't certified social worker.
It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood.
Raphael Toledano and Martin Shkreli their own reality show. They can live in one of RT's run down apartments and the valium they'll need to cope costs $750 per pill.
No. Please. If that happens then there’s a good chance one or both of them will become president one day.
Now the attorney general needs to crack down on Madison Realty Capital which are the lenders of Rafael Toledano for filling his footsteps. It’s sad that they are still out there causing harm and damages to families. Hope she does get them. Thank You Letitia James. God bless you
I live in one of these Madison Realty Capital owned buildings. Life under MRC is just as bad as when Toledano was trying to “sweep” the buildings of rent-stabilized tenants. The harassment and neglect continues. Rent-stabilized tenants can not afford lawyers to protect ourselves and the city agencies are Kafkaesque and unbelievably under resourced.
In 2020 the AG also investigated and came to an out of court settlement with MRC over their collaboration with Toledano on all this. MRC had to pay fines to the state and restitution to the few remaining rent-stabilized tenants. THEY NOW OWN THE BUILDINGS AND TREAT THE TENANTS LIKE SUBHUMANS! I don’t understand why the AG allowed this.
It’s been and continues to be a completely dystopian experience from tenants’ perspectives. We’re at the mercy of a predatory real estate industry that favors only the very rich.
I think it’s the system that allows all this to happen. I think as far as city agencies and the AG are concerned MRC is operating within the law. The laws and regulations must be changed. How exactly I don’t know. We’re just regular working people not housing legislators.
Raffi was Madison realty capital’s errand boy (and fall guy). They are still pursuing their original plan of profit over people, and are currently Frankensteining any vacant apartments they can in this portfolio to subvert the new rent regulations.
They simultaneously frankensteined 10 of the 20 apartments in 27 St Marks Place. Can you imagine living in a building where 50% of the apartments are simultaneously under demolition and heavy construction? Stop and reread that last sentence.
No normal person would plan such a project without politely and humbly temporarily relocating the tenants prior to demolition or at least tell them beforehand that demolition and construction is going to make living there unlivable. (I’m talking to you, Madison Realty Capital. How do you sleep at night? Do you feel no shame?)
They went into this project knowing that the demolition and construction would make living in these buildings intolerable and didn’t bother to plan to temporarily relocate the few remaining tenants in all the 15 buildings or advise us before to plan to find somewhere else to live during the demolition and construction. To them it seems we don't matter, we're just rent-stablized lease holders: We're not worth treating well because we don't pay them shittons of money.
Letitia James for President!
Who is to say that Toledano probably found a way to hide some of that money he borrowed? It could be safely hidden in some foreign bank or in bitcoin?
Enough with this AWhole already. Put him away for good. He's costing other good landlords in this city our lives and carries. It's because of the practices that state and city laws are stiffening us!
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