City Files Tenant Harassment Suit

By Oliver Lukacs
Staff Writer

May 5 -- The City has filed a five-count criminal complaint against a Santa Monica landlord who allegedly harassed a Mexican-American family in an effort to force them to move out of their rent-controlled apartment.

If indicted the landlord, Jaroslava Liska, could face 30 months in jail and $13,500 in fines, said Deputy City Attorney Adam Radinsky.

Liska threatened to evict the family, who had lived in the $654-a-month apartment at 1711 Delaware Avenue for 17-years, for "nuisance," Radinsky said.

Liska, he said, engaged in a “pattern of harassment and discrimination” that violated Santa Monica's Tenant Harassment Ordinance.

Liska’s attorney did not return a call for comment by deadline.

The City’s criminal charges -- all misdemeanors -- come three and a half months after Candido and Elvira C. Vivanco and their four children, filed a federal lawsuit against Liska for racial discrimination, harassment and violation of a number of municipal, State and federal laws.

“It’s rare that we get a case like this,” Radinsky said. “We believe this was a sufficiently serious and egregious case, that it was appropriate that criminal charges were brought.”

Radinsky said the City has taken on about half a dozen such cases since the tenant harassment law passed in 1995. The City won two of the cases, and the others were settled out of court.

The City charges Liska with forbidding the Vivanco children from playing outside the building or having friends visit, repeatedly yelling at Mrs. Vivanco and her young children, urging them to move out and stating that she does not want children living in the building.

The suit also charges Liska with trying to coerce the Vivancos into signing a new lease that would charge them extra for having children and would forbid them from having more children.

The federal lawsuit -- which also names Aricka Traylor, an African-American mother of five, as a plaintiff -- alleges that in 1987, when Liska assumed ownership of the apartment, she started a campaign of eliminating low-income minority tenants with children in favor of single tenants.

The federal lawsuit makes eight independent claims that Liska violated numerous laws, including California civil codes, Santa Monica housing and tenant laws, and most importantly, the Federal Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Civil Rights Act of 1866.

The federal suit seeks an unspecified amount in monetary compensation to be determined in court for emotional distress, mental anguish, and humiliation.

Some of the damages allegedly caused by Liska's behavior are Candido Vivanco's heart condition and damages to 9-year-old Teresa Vivanco's academic performance due to stress.

Liska is scheduled to be arraigned on the City’s criminal charges in Santa Monica Municipal Court on June 3.