Dilber Kukic and his “work”

Here’s something you wouldn’t expect concerning unscrupulous building development in this city. Last week it was discovered that an unlicensed contractor Dilber Kubic who’s about to go to trial later this month for his involvement from a natural gas explosion in three East Village apartment buildings on 7th Street and 2nd Ave, which was caused when he and the owner’s son, during a plumbing inspection, were checking out gas lines they jiggered in a hidden compartment to evade inspectors on orders from the landlord so she can save money for herself, which resulted in the death of two people inside a restaurant and the destruction and displacement of the residents homes was hired by a landlord and a construction firm in Harlem to do gut renovations on four apartments according to the broker for the building who pulled his listings when he became aware of Kukic’s presence a month ago.

Despite the fact that he was under probation and indicted for manslaughter, Kukic was able to get hired for what basically is legalized and glorified vandalism. This time instead of messing with gas lines, he’s using his other notorious skill sets for converting spacious one bedroom apartments to smaller and cramping two bedrooms and using his creative manipulating talents this time for electrical work.

As expected, this story gets worse as the usual complicity and barely quarter-assed inspections come to light:

Inspectors visited the building early Thursday but were unable to enter. They posted a notice for the landlord to call and schedule an inspection.

“From the outside of the building, the inspector found no apparent evidence that illegal work was being performed,” a buildings spokeswoman said.

NY Daily News

This procedure is very fascinating as much as it is abhorrent. For the DOB had no problem evicting/evacuating 75 tenants for their purported safety from a building in Chinatown for a rotted staircase that they ignored for years with the help from the FDNY and NYPD, yet they took the usual bland protocol and procedure to demand entrance for a indicted recidivist offender who was working without permits and was on probation from the DOB themselves! This should have actually required an arrest warrant from the D.A.. followed by the usual police procedure to get drug dealers out by breaking down the door with a battering ram or for a felonious skel like Kukic the assistance of a SWAT Team.

The D.A. prosecuting Kukic by the way is “Dancin” Cy Vance.

…the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance, which is prosecuting Kukic, was investigating his complaint about the Uptown building. A spokeswoman for Vance would not comment on an ongoing investigation.

 

Absolutely no need to explain further on how useless the DOB and the dearth of seriousness they take their jobs or in the case of the 75 Bowery building when to be serious and appearing selective. Here what the DOBB (the other B is for Bozos) glaringly missed by walking away:

“The whole apartment is gutted. There are no walls, nothing,” said the woman on the second floor, who added she’s lived in the building for 20 years.

“My walls were shaking. There’s so much noise with all the drilling … I’ve seen no permits.”

The firm that hired the indicted Kukic to do their illegal gut renovations, which has been  widely exposed as a tactic to force rent-stabilized tenants to move out to get the apartments to market rates have responded to this expose with the most defiant use of plausible deniability and straight up lying:

After attempting to contact Kukic, the owner of Allstate Home Remodeling, who identified himself as Joe Yusef, called The News and said the contractor accused of negligent homicide worked for him. Dilber only managed materials and did not do actual construction, Yusef said. “To be honest, Dilber doesn’t even put a screw in the job site. He has to work under my conditions.

“East Village, Downtown, I have no clue whatever happened down there. This is not something we’re doing — I’m not doing any crazy thing with gas, I don’t work like that.”

A public records search found a Jusuf Mehovic listed as the owner of Allstate Home Remodeling.

Yusef said he was only making cosmetic changes to three apartments.

“His probation officer knows. He’s allowed to work,” said Kukic’s attorney, Marc Agnifilo. “As long as the company is licensed, my understanding is he can work there as an employee.”

The landlord, John Schreiber of Uphattan Corporation, confirmed he’d used Kukic in the past.

“I don’t know what apartments you’re talking about,” Schreiber added, before hanging up on The News.

So there you go. Despite blowing up a building that killed two people and disenfranchised hundreds of people from their homes, despite these horrendous references which would be like hiring a crack kingpin to run a CVS pharmacy, Kukic is and in all probability was able to still work in the past 3 years since his initial trial and under probation. It also shows that developers, architects, contractor firms and landlords hold this individual in high regard despite his destruction and past charges of bribery (PAGE NOT FOUND)

And also the depressing fact that the city continues to not give a shit about serious regulating and punitive enforcement when it comes to the shady machinations for soulless profit involving real estate. Because last month, the vacant lot from the destruction that was bought last year from the indicted landlord Maria Hyrenko for $9.150,000, is going to be a high end condo building, symbolically making this sale just as egregious as the Rivington House flip but with the heinous fact that this transaction is legal and it was done gradually and not swiftly so not to draw attention.

Somehow the city could not procure this site for affordable housing considering the felonious act of Hyrenko, who despite looking at imprisonment is still going to profit from her fatal penny-pinching building management. This decision to build strictly luxury on this site where normal apartment buildings once stood and where two people died unnecessarily is an outright abomination. Funny how there is money for tax abatements for these developers and 90 shelters and not one cent to build a solid modest apartment building for middle class and working poor, two groups that still outnumber the frivolous rich borough wide.

But no surprise in this fucking city under Mayor de Faustio that bribery and criminal obfuscation and short cuts are not only tolerated but practically legal. Making the mission to luxurify the five boroughs for the Gentrification Industrial Complex the virtual unstoppable juggernaut it is.

For the profits desired by all the parties involved; elected officials and their insider aides, lobbyists and investors, real estate developers, landlords and mercenary contractors and goons and toadies, no lives matter. Especially the lives that can’t make the current or speculative rent.