These NYC Landlords Evict The Most Tenants, Advocates Say

NEW YORK — Just 20 New York City landlords booted nearly 2,200 tenants out of their homes last year, according to a new ranking of the city's most prolific evictors.

The "Worst Evictors" list a bloc of tenant groups released Tuesday shows how landlords weaponize the city's housing courts and incorporate evictions into their business model, advocates say.

"Landlords use their power to take tenants to court repeatedly in order to wear them out with the intention of displacing them," Carmen Vega-Rivera, a Bronx tenant leader with Community Action for Safe Apartments, said in a statement. "This has happened to me numerous times and for many years. ... This practice must stop!"

The landlords on the list evicted anywhere from 75 to nearly 200 tenants in 2018, according to figures compiled by the Right to Counsel NYC Coalition, JustFix.NYC and the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project.

Their evictions were among more than 18,000 that landlords had city marshals carry out across the city last year, the groups' analysis of publicly available data found.

Phillip Wischerth of the massive LeFrak Organization topped the list with 189 evictions last year. Wischerth is listed as the head officer for several buildings owned by LeFrak, which has more than 120 luxury residential properties in New York and New Jersey alone, according to its website. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The notorious Bronx landlord Ved Parkash was not far behind with 175 evictions last year. Parkash — who was named the city's worst landlord in 2015 — also frequently uses housing court to evict and collect rent from tenants, suggesting court battles are part of his business model, advocates say.

Parkash brought 4,663 housing court filings against his tenants from January 2013 to June 2015 — more than the 4,214 families who live in his buildings, according to the advocates' list. Patch could not reach Parkash at a number listed for his business.

Tenant advocates released a similar eviction list in May focusing on parts of the city where New Yorkers are guaranteed lawyers in housing court through the city's right to counsel initiative. Evictions in neighborhoods where the program has been rolled out have dropped faster than in parts of the city it has not yet reached, according to a March study by the Community Service Society.

The new citywide list offers a broader picture of how landlords use the courts against tenants — a phenomenon that advocates have frequently observed, said Sam Raby, the research and data lead at JustFix.NYC.

"That’s something that we hear a lot from folks working on the ground, is that they’ll notice tenants that they’re working with are constantly receiving eviction filings that don’t actually follow through to evictions, but they argue are tactics that the landlord is using to try and push people out," said Raby, whose oganization creates digital tools for tenants and organizers.

Here are the 20 worst evictors in New York City for 2018, according to the tenant advocates' list. See the full ranking here, or check out the interactive map of where evictions have occurred.

1. Phillip Wischerth, LeFrak Organization — 189 evictions
2. Ved Parkash, Parkash 242 LLC — 175 evictions
3. Peter Fine, Atlantic Development Group — 167 evictions
4. Eugene Schneur, Omni New York LLC — 150 evictions
5. Donald Hastings and Douglas Eisenberg, A&E Real Estate — 136 evictions
6. Ron Moelis, L+M Development Partners Inc. — 118 evictions
7. Joel Wiener and others, The Pinnacle Group — 106 evictions
8. Larry Gluck, Stellar Management — 101 evictions
9. Jonathan Wiener, Chestnut Holdings — 99 evictions
10. Jay Rosenfeld, AMA LLC — 99 evictions
11. Lebel Liederman, Joel Goldstein and Irving Langer, E&M Associates — 95 evictions
12. Sam Applegrad, University Realty Holdings — 93 evictions
13. David Kleiner (a.k.a. "David David"), Elsmere Associates LLC — 93 evictions
14. Mark Engel, Langsam Property Services Corp. — 89 evictions
15. Adam Weinstein, Phipps Houses Group — 83 evictions
16. Moshe Piller, Parkchester Apts LLC — 82 evictions
17. David Breuer, Renaissance Equity Holdings LLC — 78 evictions
18. Steven Finkelstein, Charlotte Bailey LLC and others — 77 evictions
19. Labe Twerski, Residential Management — 77 evictions
20. Matthew Becker, Simply Better Apartments — 75 evictions