Chronicle gets $5.5 Million damage award story against Richard Thomas wrong

Chronicle gets $5.5 Million damage award story against Richard Thomas wrong

By Lynda Carson December 7, 2008

Oakland -- On Tuesday November 4, notorious slumlord Richard Thomas, owner of Environmental and Land Management Inc., got nailed for $5.5 million in punitive damages for reportedly scamming his former tenants out of $183.000, after an Alameda County Superior Court jury awarded 30 times the amount reportedly stolen.

During a class action suit filed against Thomas involving 200 tenants or more, attorney's proved in court that during 1999 through 2007, Thomas scammed his tenants out of $183,000 or more from their security deposits by falsely claiming that the tenants damaged his apartments, while illegally withholding their deposits after they moved.

On December 5, when I asked attorney Laura Stevens if the tenants involved in the class action wanted the full $5.5 million jury award against Richard Thomas to go to local housing organizations, or if the tenants were involved in the decison making process to give up their jury award, Laura Stevens said the recent chronicle article misquoted her.

Oakland attorney Laura Stevens helped to represent the tenants in the class action against Richard Thomas, stating that the $5.5 million punitive award will have to be reduced due to U.S. Supreme Court rulings limiting punitive damages, and stated that she wants some of the award to go to local nonprofit housing agencies, only if theres any left over after the tenants get their fair share.

"The Chronicle article got it wrong when it suggested that I want housing organizations to get the full $5.5 million jury award, rather than the tenants," said Laura Stevens. "They got it all wrong! It may take up to two years to wrap up this case if Thomas appeals the jury decision, and we are not sure where all of Thomas' ex-tenants currently reside. If theres any of the settlement left over after the tenants get their share, it's customary to pass along the rest to housing organizations."

The case against Thomas was filed during August of 2003, and attorney's Barry Wildorf, Laura Stevens, and Aram Antaramian proved in court that landlord Thomas defrauded the tenants out of their security deposits and had falsely accused the tenants of damaging their rental units.

"The Campaign for Renter's Rights helped to find some of Thomas' tenants. There were few surprises to speak of during the court case, because we had plenty of solid evidence to prove that Thomas was defrauding the tenants and violating the law flagrantly through the years. If anything, I was surprised by the amount of money the jury awarded the tenants," Stevens said.

According to tenants, Thomas became notorious through the years for defrauding tenants and ripping off their security deposits, which landed him in the Indymedia list of the Bay Area's 45 Worst Slumlords, during early 2000.

Rob Rooke of the Campaign for Renter's Rights (CRR), has something to say about the $5.5 million in punitive damages against Richard Thomas. "The Campaign for Renters Rights spent over 2 years fighting landlord Richard Thomas. We picketed the Church where he was a Deacon. We sang anti-slumlord Christmas Carols outside his home. We picketed his business office. In return he took out restraining orders against 3 of our members. We organized dozens of tenants to occupy both the Oakland Mayor's office and the City Attorney's office."

"It gives us great pleasure to see such a swindling pig as Richard Thomas forced to finally have to pay up some money for his cruel, profit-addicted, ways of treating tenants. The $5.5 million settlement is in some ways payment for what he has inflicted on his tenants, however, landlords like Thomas continue to harass and torment tenants and our greatest hope is in organizing together, especially in this time of massive foreclosures facing both home "owners" and renters," says Rooke.

As early as April 24, 2000, Oakland tenants and anti-eviction activists including members of Just Cause Oakland, held a protest in front of the Mediterraneun apartment building in Oakland at 610 E. 19th St., owned by Thomas.

During that raucus protest against Thomas and his company Environmental and Land Management, numerous tenants and organizers spoke out against the way Thomas operated, while demanding Just Cause anti-eviction protections for Oakland's renters.

On that warm spring sunny day, in bib overalls and a white tee shirt, Mediterraneun tenant Gene Ramos spoke out against his no-cause eviction by Thomas, and was joined by others demanding eviction protections, including Anne Omura of the Eviction Defense Center and James Vann co-founder of the Oakland Tenant's Union, with local activist Peter Brown as the MC of the event.

There was widespread media coverage of the April 24 protest, and at that point Richard Thomas became notorious for stealing tenant's security deposits and unfair evictions, becoming the poster child of Oakland's bad landlords during 2000.

Tenant's rights' groups were also collecting signatures for a Just Cause anti-eviction initiative during the protest against Thomas that day, while members of a local landlord lobby were handing out disinformation to the media in hopes of defending the likes of Thomas from an angry citizenry.

Since the April 24, 2000, protest against slumlord Thomas, there were numerous other protests in front of some of his other properties in Oakland, including a few protests in front of his residence in Hayward.

In addition, during early December 2004, Thomas was slapped with $70,000 in penalties or more through sanctions of the Alameda County Superior Court for failing to comply with Oakland's rent laws, according to deputies in the Oakland City Attorney's Office who stated that this should have been a wake up call for Thomas. During the late 90s, Thomas was accused of wrongful evictions just to raise the rents in his apartments, and agreed to being monitored by the city attorney's office after the city sued him in 2002, but Thomas still failed to comply with Oakland's rent laws despite the court sanctions and monitoring by the city attorney's office.

Through the years, tenants continued to bitterly complain that Thomas was stealing their security deposits, and on November 4, 2008 an Alameda County Superior Court jury finally caught up to Thomas to nail him for $5.5 million in punitive damages.

Theres around 135 rental units in Oakland owned by Thomas, and around 15 more throughout Hayward and Castro Valley.

Lynda Carson may be reached at tenantsrule [at] yahoo.com