Federal Judge takes control of 6 apartments with ‘unlivable’ conditions from landlord Joshua Bruno

By CASSIE SCHIRM

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    NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (WDSU) — A federal judge will now take control of six blighted apartment complexes from New Orleans landlord Joshua Bruno.

The ruling comes after Bruno was accused of “potentially fraudulent” money transfers and an investigation into conditions.

The apartments include Oakmont, Cypress Park, Forest Park, Liberty Park, Washington Place and Riverview Apartments.

At Cypress Park apartments, residents say the conditions are unsafe. Residents like Gertrude Taplet, say it’s impacting her daily.

“I could say deplorable,” said Taplet. “It’s unlivable, but we still have to live here because we have to find a place he will take us. Right now I’m dealing with plumbing and we have rodents. Oh man, I have rodents.”

Her neighbor next door, Eunice Hubbard, hasn’t had air conditioning for months and hopes to move out before the conditions worsen.

“I have to go,” said Hubbard. “I have to go somewhere because I don’t want to still stay in the same predicament with trash all over, grass not cut a lot of things it’s just out of control.”

Between the trash, fires and crime in the neighborhood, it’s no longer safe.

In our investigation, we found the landlord had received $800,000 in hurricane insurance money to fix some of the repairs, but according to the judge, he let that money vanish in the wind “without one receipt, canceled check, or other primary-source support to show that the proceeds were spent on repairs to the properties.”

Some of the residents say they had to do their own repair.

According to court documents, “The Court found Bruno’s testimony, on the whole, to be evasive, unclear, and devoid of candor, and thus gives little to no weight to his testimony.”

It continued, “Based on the documentary evidence and testimony presented to the Court over four days, the Court is left with a strong impression that Bruno is overwhelmed, but operates solely in his own interest, is inclined to flout or skirt laws, rules, regulations, and ethics when it suits him, and, at times, prefers the use of intimidation and strong-arm tactics against those over whom he feels he has leverage.”

One resident told WDSU, that the landlord came into her house and took a breaker after she called code enforcement.

Advocates for the renters say this isn’t the first time they have fought against the landlord.

“He manages hundreds and hundreds of units across New Orleans and Jefferson Parish,” said Hannah Adams, a staff attorney with Southeast Louisiana Legal Services. “We know him to have a number of practices that we believe are unfair to tenants including failure to maintain property and other exploitative practices in his treatment of tenants. So he’s been probably the biggest most serious problem landlord we’ve been dealing with for the past decade.”

Adams hopes these properties will continue to serve low-income households once they are cleaned up and rebuilt.

The worst case was at Oakmont, where the city had to help relocate residents living in filth.

“It was awful,” said Y. Frank Southall, with Jane Place Neighborhood Sustainability Initiative. “Children walking in sewage water, I saw barbaric conditions you wouldn’t expect to see in our country.”

The judge ordered a trustee to take over the 500 units and for Bruno to turn over the apartments’ financial records, along with any associated cash and other assets.

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