Dario Pini’s Lawyer Questions Validity of Inspections

Attorneys for embattled landlord Dario Pini accused their counterparts at City Hall of fabricating evidence by exaggerating the number of health- and safety-code violations city inspectors found during a raid of 12 Pini properties in 2016. Pini’s attorney Paul Burns acknowledged in Judge Colleen Sterne’s courtroom last week that the rentals were less than pristine and might have had “dozens” of violations but hardly the 3,254 alleged. Only by counting the same infraction multiple times — once for every unit in a building, for example — can the city’s claim be made, he contended. City Attorney Ariel Calonne noted that he’d submitted more than 1,000 photographs displaying the substandard state of the units. Calonne is seeking to have 12 of Pini’s many properties — valued at $62 million — placed under the control of a court-ordered receiver empowered to collect rents and take on debt in order to make the sort of repairs Pini and City Hall have been fighting about for more than 20 years.