KOREATOWN : Slumlord’s Building Will Be His Own Jail

A slumlord was sentenced Thursday to spend 60 days in his cockroach-infested Koreatown apartment building for ignoring a court order to clean up the place.

Joseph G. Tabello, 62, was to begin serving his sentence Friday in Unit 408 of his six-story, 103-room apartment house at 840 S. Hobart Blvd., said City Attorney Jim Hahn.

The electronically monitored house arrest was ordered by Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Gregory Alarcon following a hearing at which Deputy City Attorney Michael R. Wilkinson presented evidence showing serious housing code violations at the building.

Housing Task Force inspections revealed that the building had broken fire doors that didn’t close, tangled fire hoses, 10 missing fire extinguishers, deficient electrical wiring, broken walls and leaky plumbing, and was infested with cockroaches, Hahn said.

In September, Tabello was ordered to repair the violations by Nov. 1, and Municipal Court Commissioner Kristi Lousteau placed him on three years’ probation.

A condition of that probation was to clean up the place, and Lousteau ordered Tabello to pay $15,136 in fines and serve 50 hours of community service, Hahn said.