Overview
- Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, State Sen. Brian Kavanagh and Assemblymember Micah Lasher announced S8559 to target organized harassment of rent-regulated tenants.
- The bill creates a new offense, Aggravated Harassment of a Rent-Regulated Tenant, for a systematic ongoing course of conduct across multiple properties.
- Prosecutors could also charge the new offense when a landlord repeats harassment after a prior conviction for first-degree harassment under current law.
- Existing law treats harassment of two or more tenants in a single building as a class E felony, with no added exposure for coordinated conduct across multiple buildings.
- If enacted, cases would be handled by the Manhattan D.A.’s Housing & Tenant Protection Unit, which focuses on systemic tenant harassment and related fraud.