Landlord lands easy
STEVE Croman — branded “the Bernie Ma
doff of landlords” when he was charged with 20 felonies last year — is about to cop a plea that will have him serve eight months behind bars and pay a fine of $5 million to $10 million, sources say.
The owner of 140 apartment buildings, Croman is said to be thrilled he will get off so lightly, and so is his wife, Harriet, who is part of a wealthy clique of Upper East Side moms.
Croman faced up to 25 years in prison on charges of harassing rent-stabilized tenants so he could lease their units at market rates and inflating his rental receipts in order to fraudulently secure $45 million in bank loans.
“These are the most serious set of criminal charges brought against a bad landlord in anyone’s living memory,” State Attorney General
Eric Schneiderman said last year. Croman has been free on $500,000 bail. His lawyer Ben Brafman declined to comment. Sources said Croman might have to sell some pieces in his vast art collection, but not the palatial double townhouse he renovated on East 72nd Street with two swimming pools, nor his ocean- front Hamptons estate in Sagaponack.
Croman’s son Jake, a student at the University of Michigan, is also infamous — for a video that went viral last year in which he called an Uber driver a “minimum-wage fa - - - t.”
“You’re working all day?” young Croman mocked. “Guess what? I’m going to go sit on my ass and watch TV.”
Jake later said the Uber driver had made anti-Semitic remarks.