Kushner Cos. fined $210G for false docs
NEW YORK — The Kushner family real estate company was fined $210,000 by New York City regulators yesterday following an investigation earlier this year that showed it routinely filed false documents with the city claiming it had no rent-regulated tenants in its buildings when, in fact, it had hundreds.
Separately, a watchdog group said former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen has engaged in the same practice, perhaps in a more brazen way, by telling the city that buildings he owned were empty though tax records showed they were filled with tenants, many rent-regulated.
The city’s buildings department fined the Kushner Cos. for filing 42 false applications for construction work on more than a dozen buildings when presidential adviser Jared Kushner ran the business. The report showed that the false paperwork allowed the Kushners to escape extra scrutiny designed to stop landlords from using construction to make living conditions for low-paying, rentregulated tenants unbearable and get them to leave.
The Kushner Cos. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
After The Associated Press report in March, the New York City Council and the New York state attorney general said they would look into the issue. Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn issued a subpoena to the company for documents.