NYC Landlord Accused of Emptying Apartment While Tenant Was Hospitalized

A landlord in New York City is being accused of cleaning out his tenant’s apartment while he was battling coronavirus in the hospital, Gothamist reports.

Ryo Nagaoka, 65, returned to his home Wednesday night to discover that everything but his piano and pet tortoise had disappeared. “They thought he died,” neighbor Sierra Zamarripa said. “He came back last night and there were padlocks on the door.”

An attorney for landlord Dan Shapiro told Gothamist that his client made “every effort to locate the Resident” following his hospitalization in late January after the building’s superintendent, who was responding to a water leak, found Nagaoka incapacitated. Shapiro claims he called local hospitals, but it’s believed that Nagaoka was transferred at some point to a rehab center in another borough where he spent a few months recovering from the virus. 

Three weeks after being hospitalized, the locks to the apartment were changed and management hired a cleaning crew to remove all of Nagaoka’s belongings. When neighbors noticed the items being removed, they assumed that Nagaoka had passed away, and a memorial was erected in his honor.  

While records show Shapiro bought the apartment from Michael Cohen, former lawyer for Donald Trump, in 2018, Alex Rodriguez and Shark Tank judge Barbara Corcoran reportedly became co-owners the following year. Rodriguez and Corcoran’s ownership of this Manhattan apartment building is part of a real estate partnership where they’re looking to get into business with several buildings across the city.