Arrest Warrant Issued For Allegedly Negligent Landlord

From: WEWS, OH
Nov. 4, 2002

Tenant's Water Shut Off When Bill Wasn't Paid

CLEVELAND -- A hearing-impaired Cleveland woman was forced to collect rainwater in buckets because her landlord failed to pay the water bill, according to officials.

NewsChannel5's Joe Pagonakis reported that the case now has police looking to put the landlord in jail.

Cleveland Housing Court bailiffs and Westlake police officers searched for Nassar Assad Monday at his Westlake home. Assad is now wanted on an arrest warrant for alleged housing code violations and for unpaid fines on his rental home on West 46th Street in Cleveland.

NewsChannel5 first showed you the living conditions on Kathleen Grantham on Friday. The hearing-impaired Cleveland woman pays $450 in rent monthly.

Cleveland housing inspectors went to her home Monday and documented a series of plumbing and electrical violations that Assad allegedly never took care of.

Grantham said that even though she can't hear and can hardly speak, she complained about the unfit living conditions to her landlord.

NewsChannel5 tried to contact Assad numerous times by phone on Friday and even went to his home, but he never returned the phone calls.

NewsChannel5 and Cleveland City Councilman Nelson Cintron helped to restore Grantham's water service, and with the help of Distillata Water Co., she was delivered fresh drinking water.

And late Monday afternoon, police issued a warrant for Assad.

"What we told him was he or his attorney is to contact the court immediately or we will be back out," said John Appling, a Housing Court bailiff.

Assad owes the court more than $2,000 in fines, not including the new violations found by inspectors Monday.

Officials said that Assad would be wise to turn himself in.

Copyright 2002 by NewsNet5. All rights reserved.