Tenants Claim Landlord Made Death Threats

Since the beginning of 1996, when a revised state law allowed landlords of rent-controlled buildings to raise the rent with every voluntary vacancy, there has been tension between longtime tenants and the people who lease to them.

Some renters in Santa Monica and other cities with strict rent ceilings reported that their landlords were trying to harass them out of their homes to boost earnings, taking away parking privileges, evicting previously sanctioned pets and otherwise making life miserable.

But until the case of 63-year-old landlord Stanislaw Slanda of Santa Monica, no group of tenants has complained that their landlord threatened to kill them if they didn’t move out.

Slanda, who has been in jail since Nov. 2 in lieu of $75,000 bail, is expected to be arraigned today and will ask a Santa Monica Municipal Court judge for a reduction in the 37 misdemeanor charges against him, including abusing his right to access apartments, making terrorist threats, stalking and two counts of committing a hate crime.

In a brief hearing Wednesday, Judge Hiroshi Fujisaki continued until today the question of reducing Slanda’s bail. But the judge, known from his stewardship of the O.J. Simpson civil trial for his no-nonsense manner, said he would be tempted to bar Slanda from going back to his apartment building.

“The circumstances surrounding this complaint are sufficiently disturbing [that] I think to allow the defendant to be anywhere in the proximity of the building whatsoever would be an invitation to disaster,” Fujisaki said. “The gentleman appears to be out of control.”

Attorneys for Slanda said the landlord, who has owned his building for 25 years and never hurt anyone, denies the charges.

From 1979 to 1995, landlords complained to the city that they could not sustain their properties on the paltry rent hikes the city granted them each year. In those days, rent was capped even if a tenant moved out.

In 1995, the Legislature changed the rules to lift strict rent ceilings in Santa Monica, West Hollywood and Berkeley. Landlords now can raise the rent 15% with every voluntary vacancy. Starting in 1999, they can charge new tenants whatever the market will bear.

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Stung by the state law, Santa Monica passed a law to address what was foreseen as the aftermath of the Legislature’s decision: the Tenant Harassment Ordinance.

And that law, Slanda’s supporters said, has enabled the city to continue its campaign against people who are just trying to earn a living.

“I think the city attorney’s office has lost its balance when it comes to landlord-tenant issues,” said Slanda attorney Rosario Perry. “[Slanda] is the victim of some type of persecution--he just wants to be left alone.”

Perry said that if anyone is being harassed, it is Slanda, who has been tormented by a cabal of neighbors and tenants who knew they would have Santa Monica on their side. Just before his arrest, Perry said, Slanda put his six-unit building in the 800 block of 20th Street up for sale, just to get away from the abuse.

Another Slanda lawyer noted in court that the reason the charges were being heard in Municipal Court was because the district attorney declined to file felony charges.

Deputy City Atty. Adam Radinsky said he can only speak for his office, which is determined to prosecute what they see as a string of serious crimes.

“He told [a] tenant he doesn’t have to fight these tenants, all he had to do is put bullets in the back of their heads--boom, boom,” Radinsky said at Wednesday’s hearing.

In addition to renters’ complaints, Radinsky said, there were allegations from neighbors, who claimed that Slanda acted in loud and threatening ways toward them. Recently, Radinsky said, the abuse has escalated.

Last July, Radinsky said, there were death threats against a Jewish renter.

“[Slanda] directly threatened to kill him, to exterminate him, and called him various anti-Semitic epithets,” Radinsky said.

Tenants also claimed that he peered in their windows, followed them and yelled obscenities at all hours, Radinsky said.

Last month, a group of tenants and neighbors voiced their complaints at a Santa Monica Rent Control Board hearing.

Because that agency was unable to address either the seriousness of the charges or those complaints from neighbors, it forwarded the group’s comments to the city attorney’s office and the Santa Monica police, said Anthony Trendacosta, the board’s general counsel.

Slanda was arrested on Nov. 2, when another woman claimed that the landlord threatened to kill her, Radinsky said.

Times correspondent Joseph Hanania contributed to this story.