Whodunit: September 2009 Archives

Crime and Punishment:

The Repentance of Nadya Mahdavi and Nasir Shaikh

Judgment Day was finally here

It had taken 18 months to get to this moment.

A lot had happened since city inspectors first cited Nadya Mahdavi for construction without a permit at the house on Haynes Street in my modest Valley tract of single-family homes.

The case snowballed after neighbors figured out that Mahdavi was illegally converting the house into a three-unit tenement that threatened the quality of their lives and the value of their property.

They complained to the city, to Councilman Dennis Zine. They researched property records, they finally got mad enough to walk door-to-door with petitions demanding the city do something about it

That's how I got involved and started asking questions. I wanted to help, I wanted to know who was killing my neighborhood.

Was it just a greedy landlord trying to get more than $5,000 in rent by converting a 2,000-square-foot house into three units, each with its own kitchen and bathroom, 12 rooms in all? Or was it the system itself, the city, that was responsible for failing in its duty?

Everyone was a suspect.

The trail led to Chief Inspector Frank Bush and others in the Building and Safety Department, to Zine and his staff and finally to the Van Nuys Courthouse and Deputy City Attorney Don Cocek.

Citations started piling up even as Mahdavi flipped ownership of the house each time a court date approached. The ownership went from Mahdavi's Wall Street Properties to her employee to a company called Fidelity Investment Group which listed her husband Nasir Shaikh as president.

A simple permit problem, an infraction, escalated into a series of charges, misdemeanor crimes subject to fines and jail time, that were filed against Mahdavi, Shaikh and Fidelity Investments.

It took officials a while to unravel the chain of ownership and identify exactly who to hold accountable and for what.

The accused played the system for time, provided misleading information, asked for Public Defenders, didn't have lawyers representing them.

Mahdavi's failure to appear in court led to a warrant for her arrest being issued -- something that took two months to achieve because of the multiple addresses where she might be living.

Authorities' attitudes hardened as the months dragged on. My neighbors adjusted to the irritation of many cars parked at the home on Haynes and the comings and goings of the tenants of the three units.

Finally, 13 months after the first citation, the deconstruction of the house got under way and it was brought back into compliance with the law. It took six more months for Judgment Day to arrive.

Mahdavi and Shaikh were already at court when I arrived yesterday. They didn't look as cocky as they had before. They greeted me with smiles.

A lot had happened in their lives since they bought the house on Haynes. Their marriage had broken up, their high-flying lives had come down to earth as the collapse of the housing market cost them dearly, unraveling their various property schemes.

Encino attorney Gerald Cobb had worked out a deal with Cocek: Fidelity would plead guilty to three counts, Mahdavi and Shaikh would plead no contest to two counts each. They would be fined just under $10,000 and pay $1,500 in investigative fees. They would be on probation for a year and if they stay out of trouble and pay the fine, the charges will be reduced on their record from misdemeanors to infractions.

It was just before noon when they were called to appear before Commissioner Thomas E. Grodin who had imposed his own condition on the plea bargain: Each of the defendants was required to write a 1,000-word essay of contrition for him to consider at sentencing.

"I was not terribly impressed ...frankly, with either one."

As we left the courthouse, Cocek said all the information he had gathered was turned over to the state Department of Real Estate.

"If they screw-up again, they will lose their licenses," he said.

The case was closed.

My neighborhood is as safe and tranquil as ever. The suspects were identified and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

The system worked, if slowly. The inspectors, Cocek, the court system had done their jobs well and honorably.

But I couldn't help wondering how much my own role might have changed the course of events, the exposure of the case for all the world to see causing officials to spend far more time on it than was usual.

In her letter to Grodin, Mahdavi acknowledges how that affected her: "The humiliation and disgrace I have felt from being portrayed as a criminal and the harassment I have received through internet exposure has caused such a terrible impact on me and my family"

In the grand scheme of things, this was a small matter.

There are thousands of more serious violations of housing codes going undetected all over the city, especially in poorer areas.

Building and Safety is grossly understaffed and taking a bigger hit in the city budget crisis with our elected officials gutting funds for code enforcement to protect jobs that facilitate developers moving ahead on new projects that generate revenue.

So who is killing our neighborhoods?

There's a lot people like Mahdavi and Shaikh who do stupid and greedy things. Only the few are caught and punished despite the efforts of people like Frank Bush, Don Cocek and Judge Grodin to protect us. Usually, it takes the neighborhoods themselves to bring these problems to their attention and persist until they get action.

The same cannot be said for the city's leadership.

Throughout the current budget process, they have only talked about how to bring in more revenue to the city -- not how to preserve the neighborhoods or the quality of life for the residents.

Laws for our protection are haphazardly enforced and resources are expended to get developments approved faster and faster even though the infrastructure is deteriorating and inadequate for our needs.

Whodunit? It's really not a mystery.

Read the full text of Mahdavi's essay: