NEW YORK (AP) The Kushner family real estate company was fined $210,000 by New York City regulators on Monday following an Associated Press investigation earlier this year that showed it routinely filed false documents with the city claiming it had no rent-regulated tenants in its buildings when, in fact, it had hundreds.
Separately, a watchdog group said Monday that former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has engaged in the same practice, perhaps in a more brazen way, by telling the city that buildings he owned were empty, though tax records showed they were filled with tenants, many rent-regulated.
The citys buildings department fined the Kushner Cos. for filing 42 false applications for construction work on more than a dozen buildings when presidential adviser Jared Kushner, son-in-law to President Donald Trump, ran the business. The AP report showed that the false paperwork allowed the Kushners to escape extra scrutiny designed to stop landlords from using construction to make living conditions for low-paying, rent-regulated tenants unbearable and get them to leave.
Kushner Cos. filed more than 80 documents for buildings stating they had no rent-regulated units when there were actually hundreds.The filings allowed the company to raise rents and push out tenants who would have otherwise been protected, the AP said.
In a related case, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomos Tenant Protection Unit in July opened a probe into Kushner Cos. after rent-regulated tenants of a Brooklyn building accused the company in a lawsuit of doing disruptive work to push them out.
Kushners fined for falsifying building construction permits
