Slumlord Is Sought After Check Bounces

A San Pedro Municipal Court judge on Friday issued an arrest warrant for a convicted slumlord who, after being ordered to pay his former tenants $16,000 in relocation fees, gave them a check that bounced.

In a last-minute hearing, Judge Roy Ferkich gave landlord Martin Cantor until Monday at 1:30 p.m. to turn himself in to the court. If he does not show up at that time, the judge said, the warrant will become active.

Tenants Applaud

Lawyers for the four tenants, who vacated their San Pedro apartments in March after Cantor promised to pay them $4,000 apiece as soon as they moved, applauded the judge’s decision.

“I think it’s about time,” said Toby Rothschild, executive director of the Long Beach Legal Aid Foundation, which is representing the tenants. “He has ignored the law and attempted to evade it in every way possible ever since March when these tenants moved out. . . . They have suffered a great deal because of his callousness.”

$16,000 Check

On Tuesday, at a sentencing hearing before Ferkich, Cantor’s lawyer turned over a $16,000 bank draft to a lawyer for the tenants. In exchange, Ferkich reduced Cantor’s six-month sentence to 45 days, as he had previously agreed to do if the money were paid.

By Thursday, however, it was clear that there was not enough money in Cantor’s account to cover the draft. Cantor’s lawyer, Michael Stephenson, complained that the tenants deposited the draft too quickly, before his client had a chance to put money in his account. Stephenson said the money would become available Friday.

Long Battle

When the money was still not forthcoming, Deputy City Atty. Juana Webman, who prosecuted Cantor, asked Ferkich for the arrest warrant.

The judge’s order is just the latest episode in a long-running battle between the tenants and Cantor, who has already spent five months under house arrest for maintaining slum conditions at the San Pedro apartment building where the tenants lived. Inspectors found cockroaches, rats, a leaky roof, faulty wiring and “a hole the size of a bathtub filled with sewage water” outside the building, according to Webman.