Sisters Donate $5,000 Under Terms of Slum Conviction

Two San Fernando Valley sisters donated $5,000 to a social service organization Thursday to comply with the terms of their sentences for operating apartments under slum conditions.

The Los Angeles city attorney’s office presented the check to Bet Tzedek, a North Hollywood organization providing legal services to the needy.

Bet Tzedek operates programs that help tenants of slum properties and improve living conditions in low-income housing, said Ted Goldstein, a spokesman for City Atty. James K. Hahn.

Dolores S. Whitzman, 65, of Tarzana and her sister, Patricia Rance, 61, of Encino pleaded no contest Feb. 5 in Los Angeles Municipal Court to charges that they violated safety codes at the two buildings they operate. The 30-unit dwellings, at 1516 S. Hope St. and 1526 S. Hope St., were in severe disrepair, the city attorney’s office said.

The problems included exposed electrical wiring, cockroach and rodent infestation, defective uncapped natural gas piping and broken smoke detectors.

Authorities with the city’s interagency slum housing task force looked into the case after investigators responded to tenant complaints and found violations during inspections in March, 1992. City attorneys filed the case after follow-up visits showed that the owners had not improved conditions, the city attorney’s office said.

The buildings have since been brought into compliance with safety codes, Goldstein said.

Whitzman had been prosecuted for slum conditions at the two buildings in 1987, when she was known as Dolores S. Michaelson. Whitzman and another woman were convicted, placed on two years probation and ordered to pay about $5,000 in fines and costs to repair the buildings, Goldstein said.

In this year’s case, Whitzman and Rance were ordered to pay $22,621 in fines, costs and charitable contributions and perform 100 hours of community service, the city attorney’s office said.

The donation to Bet Tzedek is the latest incident of sentencing designed to funnel funds to nonprofit organizations benefiting the poor and ill.

“The thought is that slumlords are making money from the tenants and from the community residents and therefore should put money back into the community in the way of charitable donations,” Goldstein said.