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Abram Gin's American dream has become a nightmare
The Russian civil engineer immigrated here 15 years ago and made a fortune buying and upgrading rental housing for low- and moderate-income families. His portfolio currently includes more than 6,000 rental units in 100 buildings in the Bronx, Harlem and Washington Heights.
But Mr. Gin's empire is crumbling. He has failed to make loan payments and has used renters' security deposits to pay operating costs, according to court papers. Two government agencies are investigating him for possible abuses of state and city housing programs.
Meanwhile, Mr. Gin is being sued by his partner on seven cooperative conversions, a line of business Mr. Gin recently entered. The partner, Aaron Ziegelman, one of the largest co-op converters in the city, claims, among other things, that Mr. Gin has been derelict in payments to contractors and has diverted funds from the conversions to fund other operations. Mr. Ziegelman is also foreclosing on four of Mr. Gin's other properties because of the latter's alleged failure to make payments on $4.2 million in loans.
Mr. Gin could not be reached for comment. But his court papers contend that Mr. Ziegelman's charges are "deliberate and reprehensible obfuscations of innocent actions undertaken in the ordinary course of business."
Mr. Gin's company, Artha Management Inc., was able to accumulate so much property so quickly by taking advantage of a wide range of low-income housing programs. "No one has figured out how to use city programs to the maximum extent possible like he has," says Margaret Stix, a housing specialist working for Manhattan Borough President David Dinkins.
But in the end, Mr. Gin's facile use of...