Staten Island man sent to Rikers Island in $500K condo board feud; ‘A broken man’ says his wife

New York Daily News via Yahoo ^ | November 12, 2022 | Rocco Parascandola

[grundle]

Something about New York’s legal system doesn’t seem right to Joseph Riccardi, who is jailed because he won’t spend up to $500,000 to meet the demands of his Staten Island condo board.

“There are people committing serious crimes who don’t even have to post bail and are free,” Riccardi told the Daily News. “Yet, I’m on Rikers? It’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“I’m a 57-year-old grandfather, worked 35 years in the finance industry,” an exasperated Riccardi said. “I haven’t got a parking ticket in 20 years. I’ve never so much as sat in a police car.”

Riccardi, a foreign currency trader, began his most recent Rikers Island stretch Oct. 24, and expects to be released Dec. 28.

His trouble is rooted in a years-long legal feud with the board of Ocean View Tower, a condo on the far northern end of Hylan Blvd. in Rosebank, near New York Harbor and across the street from the historic Alice Austen House.

In 2006, Riccardi bought a 14th-floor penthouse in the building for nearly $1 million.

At some point after the building went up in 1989, someone added to the size of the penthouse, the building’s board says. A lawsuit says the addition “exclusively used certain portions of the roof” and is in violation of the city’s building code.

Riccardi said he learned that the 1,500-square-foot rooftop addition was completed by a previous owner, though one architect later told him the space was in fact part of the building’s original construction.

Howard File, a lawyer for Ocean View, doesn’t dispute Riccardi’s claim that he didn’t build on the condo’s roof — but says it doesn’t matter. Under the building’s bylaws, Ocean View says, Riccardi is responsible for fixing the situation.

[from occupied ga]

The US has some advantages still even in the wretched state it is in now.

[SaveFerris]

Yeah

[BiteYourSelf]

And never move into a neighborhood with an HMO.🤔