A WEALTHY Westchester state Senate candidate has been repeatedly sued by for allowing drug and gambling operations in buildings he owns in the city, the Daily News has learned.
City officials have gone to court at least five times since 1998 to address “nuisance” issues in Manhattan buildings owned by Bob Cohen, a Republican running for an open seat in the leafy suburbs.
Tenants in some of his 29 buildings also complain of mice, roaches and a state of disrepair.
“I’ve called four times asking them to fix my fridge,” said Matt Ciglar, 31, who lives in a Cohen building at 644 W. 173rd St. He said he has holes in his walls and sees mice scurry across his floor “a few times a week.”
“I’m calling Bob Cohen if they don’t (fix) it soon,” he said.
The latest suits against Cohen and his buildings were in 2009 and 2011 over gambling dens in apartments at 2509 Seventh Ave. in Harlem. According to court records, the Seventh Ave. building has been the site of five NYPD investigations into illegal gambling — resulting in numerous arrests between 2008 and 2010. “It was a numbers hole,” said one current tenant. “They took numbers and bets. A lot of people came in and out.”
The building also was cited in a 2002 civil court case for housing two different gambling operations that also led to arrests.
And in 1998 and 2001, the city went after another Cohen building at 122-132 Hamilton Place, where cops found dealers repeatedly selling pot on the premises.
“I’m embarrassed. I don’t have anyone visit,” said Ivelisse Montilla who lives in a Cohen building on W. 143rd St. and says people doing drugs in the hallways leave behind a stench of urine.
The court cases were all resolved before trial after the tenants either left on their own or were evicted, records show. In the last two cases, Cohen was not fined, though in 2011 he signed off on a consent order committing to prevent gambling in his building, city officials said.
The Republican businessman is running for the Senate in a district that includes well-off towns like Bedford, Rye and Mamaroneck. The current senator, Democrat Suzi Oppenheimer, is retiring.
Cohen’s spokesman, William O’Reilly, called him “the hero of the story” for purchasing bad buildings in tough neighborhoods and making them livable again. He said Cohen works closely with police to quickly rid his buildings of bad tenants. “These are tough neighborhoods, (with) drug dealers, and he cleans them up with the police,” O’Reilly said. “He wants his buildings clean, he wants his buildings operating right, but you can’t always know what’s going on behind closed doors .”
Cohen’s buildings contain close to 500 units. The city has issued a myriad of complaints and violations against his buildings — though not serious enough to land him on the city public advocate’s slumlord watch list.
With Tina Moore
and Christina Boyle
klovett@nydailynews.com
