NYC's 'Worst Landlord' Harasses Tenants With Building Horrors: DA

NEW YORK CITY — New York City's "worst landlord" let loose horrors — including a ceiling that collapsed onto a child — on rent-regulated tenants to harass them into moving out so he could sell buildings for tidy profits, authorities said.

Daniel Ohebshalom, 62, was indicted Wednesday in a first-of-its-kind tenant case, according to court records and officials.

"As alleged, Daniel Ohebshalom took advantage of rent-regulated tenants living in five Manhattan apartment buildings by creating dangerous living conditions in an effort to push them out," said Alvin Bragg, district attorney for Manhattan, in a statement.

The indictment only adds to Ohebshalom's recent woes.

Ohebshalom has not only topped the city's "100 Worst Landlords in NYC" list several years, he recently went to Rikers Island to serve a 60-day bit after a judge found he failed to make hundreds of fixes in two Manhattan apartment buildings.

The jailed Ohebshalom now stands accused of neglecting repairs in and lying about the ownership of five buildings. Those are:

The building's tenants dealt with a litany of squalid conditions, from lack of heat and hot water during the winter months to leaks that caused ceilings to collapse, prosecutors said.

One ceiling even fell on a young child, authorities said.

At one point, Ohebshalom emailed a tenant to "poke a hole" in a sagging ceiling, so water can drip down, according to documents.

"It is not as bad as you think," he wrote, prosecutors said.

The tenant replied that FDNY personnel came by and said the ceiling counted as an emergency, authorities said.

"They were extremely concerned that you told me to do this myself and said that was 'completely unsafe and shocking,'" according to emails provided by prosecutors.