$2 Million fine for Sexually Harassing Tenants

NYTimes    Three men who operated Upper West Side apartment buildings, one of them a building superintendent who was also a convicted sex offender, have agreed to pay more than $2 million in fines to tenants who were sexually harassed by the superintendent, the United States attorney’s office said Tuesday. 

Under the agreement, the landlord, Stanley Katz of Manhattan, is also prohibited from managing properties, and the former superintendent, William Barnason, is barred from maintaining or managing occupied properties. 

According to the complaint, Mr. Barnason, who had been convicted of molesting or raping three girls and a woman in Suffolk County, would try to enter women’s apartments while drunk and demand sex, engage in “unwelcome groping and fondling” and demand sexual favors in return for rent reductions. Officials said he would retaliate against tenants who refused to comply.