Almost exactly a year ago, Steve Croman, one of the city’s most notorious landlords, was charged with 20 felonies (and a civil suit), and today, the New York Post reports, the real estate mogul is about to “cop a plea”: eight months in prison, plus a fine between $5 and $10 million dollars, according to the paper’s sources.
That’s a whole lot lighter than it might have been. Per the Post, Croman—who the paper characterized, not all that dramatically, as the “Bernie Madoff of landlords”—was facing up to 25 years behind bars for strategically harassing rent-stabilized tenants, falsifying documents listing rent-stabilized units as market-rate apartments, and “inflating his rental receipts to in order to fraudulently secure $45 million in bank loans.”
Last year, State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman called the Croman allegations “the most serious set of criminal charges brought against a bad landlord in anyone’s living memory.”
If he got off easier than expected, it seems like he has high-profile defense attorney Ben Brafman to thank. Croman joins an illustrious roster of Brafman’s infamous clients, including Mafia boss Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, former managing director of the IMF Dominique Strauss-Kahn, and number-one pharma bro Martin Shkreli.
Still, he’s not off the hook entirely. While Croman will apparently not have to part with his “palatial” Upper East Side double townhouse or his oceanfront estate in Sagaponack, sources told the Post that he may be forced to “sell some pieces in his vast art collection.” Cue the tiny violins.
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