A young, pretty Queens landlord faces a potential jail sentence as her ugly dispute with a disabled tenant headed toward a criminal and civil contempt trial amid allegations of mortgage fraud.
The landlord, Hofstra University student Samantha Zangrillo, failed to fix a busted boiler and broken plumbing that sent “raw sewage, feces” spewing into the bathroom of tenant Rosemary Shelton. This sickened Shelton and her two young kids so badly that they fled the Springfield Gardens apartment last May and become homeless, said Shelton’s lawyer Alexander Urbelis.
Urbelis said he was seeking to have Zangrillo, 24, jailed and fined for contempt of court for failing to repair the property, and for failing to comply with a judge’s orders in a pending civil action in Queens Housing Court filed by Shelton.
City housing officials said there are 43 open violations at the Grayson Street property that Zangrillo owns, violations that Urbelis said could generate about $100,000 in city fines.
“Only thing I wanted was a decent, livable housing for me and my children, which she hasn’t provided,” asaid Shelton, who uses a cane.
A Housing Court judge set a Dec. 14 trial date.
During the proceedings, Urbelis told the judge he suspects Zangrillo’s August 2008 purchase of the house involved a mortgage fraud.
The lawyer claimed that land records show the home was bought or transferred three times that same day, with the original purchaser paying $325,000 for it, and Zangrillo buying it within hours for $600,000.
Urbelis said the question of possible mortgage fraud is relevant because Zangrillo has claimed the house was an “investment property.”
“Anyone who has an investment property wouldn’t allow the boiler to break down so badly that [the city Housing and Preservation Development agency] said, ‘It was dangerous and could have exploded’ or let the electricity go out and have the city take over the bill,” he said.
He refused to say if he made a complaint aboutpossible mortgage fraud.
This past August, two days before Zangrillo was due to appear at a hearing in Shelton’s case, a fire destroyed the home.
An FDNY source told The Post yesterday that fire marshals ruled that the blaze “was intentionally set” and that “the investigation is still open.”
Zangrillo and her lawyer refused to comment,
She is being sued in Nassau County, LI, by the co-owner of her hair salon, who accuses her and her purported live-in boyfriend of misappropriating $22,700 in corporate funds to pay personal credit card debts and truck insurance, and also of using money earmarked for employees’ health insurance for their own use.
Urbelis said Zangrillo, in the lawsuit by Shelton, originally had told a judge she needed a Legal Aid lawyer to defend her, suggesting she could not afford a private lawyer.
However, Urbelis noted his process server several times spotted a 2008 Mercedes-Benz owned by Zangrillo parked at her Valley Stream, LI, home when he went there.