Ministry of Justice takes action against landlords for sexual harassment of tenants

An Ohio woman finds her locks have been changed after she failed to comply with her landlord’s demands for sex. A Colorado family finds their new landlord groping their children. A Georgia woman has her rent paid for her and her landlord practices kissing her.

Such sexual harassment cases are just some of the numerous offenses the Justice Department has cited in recent cases against landlords under its Housing Sexual Harassment Initiative. The program, touted by prosecutors as groundbreaking, has already secured $17 million in grants in dozens of cases, which are then paid out to victims.

But experts and federal officials say the program, launched in 2017, only scratches the surface of a deep-rooted problem that the law has only just begun to address.

“This is just a drop in the bucket,” said Rigel C. Oliveri, a professor at the University of Missouri School of Law, of the federal government’s settlements. “This is a vanishingly small number of cases, although the total number must be many orders of magnitude higher.”

Because of the legal mechanisms of the Fair Housing Act, most cases end up in court, Oliveri says, although some egregious cases have resulted in trials.

According to experts, the victims are often low-income women who rent from private landlords who operate without supervision.

Federal officials, meanwhile, say the only way to expose unscrupulous landlords is for tenants to come forward.

The National Fair Housing Alliance documented 2,490 complaints based on sex in 2022, according to its latest report, the highest number since the group of more than 200 nationwide housing and civil rights organizations began tracking the issue in 2005. The complaints also included discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Tenants can report landlords to federal authorities by calling 1-800-669-9777 or visiting the Department of Housing and Urban Development website.

More:Massachusetts man fined nearly $4 million for sexually assaulting rehab tenants

Consideration in Ohio

The Ohio landlord’s case, which was settled in June, has all the hallmarks of a typical landlord lawsuit: A private landlord preys on low-income women, attempting to blackmail them for sex and harass them.

Between 2009 and 2020, Joseph Pedaline, a landlord in the Rust Belt city of Youngstown, offered to waive rent in exchange for sex, forcibly touched women on their breasts and buttocks and evicted tenants who rejected him, according to records from the Northern District of Ohio.

Pedaline changed the locks on a woman who refused to pay him back; he evicted another tenant for failing to pay her water bill – which he was supposed to pay – after she asked him to stop making sexual comments about her; and he locked another woman in her apartment and groped her, the lawsuit says.

He settled with the Justice Department and agreed to pay the victims $189,000 and a $10,000 civil penalty to the federal government, the settlement agreement states. Pedaline must also try to restore the victims’ credit and stop managing rental properties.

The Ministry of Justice’s initiative

The Ohio case is one of the latest successes in the Justice Department’s initiative to combat sexual harassment in housing.

Launched in October 2017, the initiative is overseen by the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division and aims to enforce the Fair Housing Act’s ban on sex discrimination. It’s about sexual harassment in any form related to housing – from offensive comments by caretakers or security guards to sexual blackmail of potential home buyers by loan officers.

Federal authorities announced the program at the height of the MeToo movement, shortly after a series of lawsuits were filed against housing providers for sexual harassment. Those claims included unwanted touching, sexual comments and indecent exposure of female tenants.

“We are working to hold perpetrators of sexual harassment accountable for the way they use their power and position to the detriment of women and families who are simply seeking access to housing,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in response to a request for comment. “Far too often, the most vulnerable among us are exploited and forced to endure illegal and inhumane behavior in order to keep a roof over our heads.”

According to Aryele N. Bradford, senior communications adviser for the Justice Department, since the case began, justice officials have filed 42 lawsuits, reached 32 settlements, obtained two favorable verdicts in court and won $17.2 million in damages for more than 400 victims.

Landlord describes allegations as “hearsay”

Pedaline, a Youngstown native who began renting properties in the late 1980s, called sexual harassment a serious problem – but said he has not done it.

“This whole Me Too thing has gotten out of control,” Pedaline told USA TODAY. “It started out as a good thing, but now it’s gotten out of control.”

Of the dozen or so allegations against him, only one is based on a police report, said the 72-year-old.

“They had a police report on everyone, and this woman was completely insane. The rest is just hearsay,” he said. “It would be different if there were 12 police reports.”

The woman called the police after misunderstanding his words when he told the woman, who he found difficult, to “buy a bottle of wine and learn to relax.”

Nearly 3,000 tenants rode their bikes through the former landlord’s buildings, Pedaline said, adding that those who sued him were only after money.

He said he decided to settle because he could not afford to fight the federal lawsuit. The victims are expected to receive around $15,000 from Pedaline.

“Even though I’ve been cheated on, I just want to move on and get it over with,” he said. “Never go into a room alone with a woman. You’re asking for trouble.”

Colorado landlord targets children

Matt Kirsch, Colorado’s deputy attorney general who prosecuted the case against the landlord accused of groping her tenants’ children, called arguments like Pedaline’s flimsy.

“We dispute the notion that someone who has settled with us did not have good reason to do so,” Kirsch said. “We do not pursue civil action unless we believe it is justified by the facts we have established during the course of the investigation. And we do not pursue it unless we believe we can ultimately prevail if the matter goes to trial.”

The Colorado case involves Kathryn Butters, an Eagle County landlord who rented the house next door to hers to a family who were “desperate” for housing and had nowhere else to go, according to court records.

Butters showed up and made sexual comments toward the family’s prepubescent boys; she once entered the house uninvited, watched the older boy shower, and groped the younger one; and she made unwanted sexual comments about the parents, the lawsuit says.

According to the settlement agreement, the woman agreed to pay the family $300,000 to be used to set up a trust fund for the children.

The family declined to comment, citing fears of violating the consent agreement.

Prosecution by the authorities against landlords depends on the tenants reporting the crime, said Kirsch, and urged tenants to contact local federal authorities in the Department of Justice or the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

The Colorado family filed their complaint after contacting the local housing authority for help finding a new place to live, justice officials said.

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Final frontier of sexual harassment law

Oliveri, a law professor in Missouri, called housing sexual harassment cases one of the last areas where the government is still thinking about how to take action against perpetrators.

The former Justice Department attorney has been following the issue for nearly 25 years and says combating sexual harassment in housing has been secondary to ending harassment in the workplace.

The difference is that there is much more control in the workplace, she said.

“You have human resources, you have colleagues, but many of the women in this situation have nowhere to turn except the person who has the key to the apartment,” Oliveri said.

In her studies on sexual harassment in the housing sector, Oliveri found that landlords are particularly likely to target low-income women living in private rental properties who are afraid to complain for fear of becoming homeless.

Even the women who call the police often find that their reports come to nothing.

What is needed, according to Oliveri, is training for the police to teach them to recognize the problem as criminal behavior.

“It’s not a landlord-tenant dispute; it’s sexual harassment; it’s sexual assault; it’s public exposure,” she said. “They’re things that, if a stranger were doing something to a stranger, would definitely warrant a police response.”

The researcher sees landlord control programs and police training as temporary measures for what really needs to be done: creating more housing.

“This is what happens when housing is scarce and options are few and far between,” she said. “If you look for it, you will find it.”

More landlord cases in the USA

In April, prosecutors settled a case against Iraj Shambayati, a longtime real estate manager from Savannah, Georgia, who alleged sexual harassment in federal court documents. He was ordered to pay $590,000 to the victims.
The Justice Department filed suit in March against Ariel Solis Veleta, an Albuquerque, New Mexico, property manager, for sexually harassing tenants. A lawyer for Veleta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In May, prosecutors in Massachusetts obtained a favorable verdict against Peter McCarthy, the operator of 14 rehab clinics. The 51-year-old was found guilty of sexual harassment and retaliation and ordered to pay $3.8 million in damages to seven victims.

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