NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
June 6, 2017
When David Sans applied for a $722-a-month two-bedroom in a luxury Manhattan apartment tower that includes taxpayer-subsidized affordable units, he claimed a full-time salary of $24,745.
At the time, however, records Sans filed as a registered stockbroker listed him working full-time for securities firms as an investment banker specializing in health care companies.
When he came up for recertification to continue living in his ninth floor low-rent aerie, he now provided a 2012 tax form showing his income had suddenly jumped to $238,000.
The next year, Sans — who added a second job as a top executive at Mount Sinai Hospital three months after snagging his low-income apartment — reported an income of $456,502.
Sans’ sweet housing deal surfaced in an audit released last week by state Controller Thomas DiNapoli that looked at how tenants with six-figure incomes are able to obtain “affordable” apartments subsidized by the public.
DiNapoli found that as of December 2015, 160 tenants living in affordable units in New York City were making $100,000 or more, with eight making $250,000 or more.
As he noted, once a tenant qualifies, they can’t be removed from this housing if their income goes up over time.
The DiNapoli audit outlines the Sans case without naming Sans, although public records make clear he was the tenant in question.
In Sans’ situation, he changed his story several times as questions arose about his eligibility, but as of last week, he remained living in the same luxury tower on 11th Ave. in Chelsea — called the Ohm — in a slightly smaller apartment.
The Ohm was built with a tax break called 421-a — a sweetener that allowed the builder, Douglaston Development, to avoid paying property taxes for 20 years in exchange for agreeing to make 20% of the apartments “affordable.”
The other 80% go for market rate, and in this case, two bedrooms inside the Ohm rented this week for $4,000 a month.
Only low income applicants are eligible for the “affordable” apartments, and they must provide evidence of their income to qualify.
In Sans’ case, that evidence was a copy of a 2011 tax form claiming a $24,000 salary provided by Sans — not an official transcript provided by the IRS. Under the 421-a rules, a transcript is not required.
In his May 2012 application, Sans at first claimed he was single, then when he was told his income was too high for a one-person occupancy, he produced two “dependents” — a teenage niece and nephew.
He provided no proof that they were attending school in New York City, however, and when pressed for their Social Security numbers, produced numbers that investigators later discovered actually belonged to a 65-year-old man in California and a 9-year-old girl in Iowa.
At the time he claimed to be making $24,000, he was a registered stockbroker and listed his employment history with the oversight Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
FINRA records show that from 2007 through 2013, Sans claimed he worked without a gap for five separate security brokerages.
Sans moved into his ninth floor two-bedroom in May 2012. Concerns about his application first arose in October 2014 during a routine review by the state agency that oversees 421-a, the Housing and Community Renewal Division.
HCR noted that the building operators, Clinton Management, provided “no verifications on file for the checking account, savings account and stocks and bonds” listed on Sans’ initial application. They also noted that on his 2011 tax form, he filed as “single,” but on his 2012 form, he was filing jointly with a wife.
In response to the state, Sans produced a sworn statement now claiming that his niece had moved out three months after he moved into the Ohm, and that his nephew never lived there.
He also admitted that he was married at the time he’d filed for the apartment, but that he and his wife were separated. He asked to be transferred to a smaller apartment.
State officials allowed him to move to the smaller apartment.
On Saturday, Sans gave The News yet another version of events, stating that at the time he applied for the apartment, “I was unemployed. I qualified. I had my own business. All this is false. I got this apartment way before I started working.”
He declined to discuss the Social Security numbers he’d provided for his niece and nephew or his job history registered with FINRA.
“The system works this way,” he said. “The system doesn’t say when you make more money, you have to leave. It doesn’t. It’s not designed like that. It’s designed to help people that don’t make money. So if I don’t make money within a period of time — what am I going to do when I do make money? Just leave?”
Neither the state nor the management company ever checked Sans’ FINRA filing listing him as an investment banker at the time he was claiming a $24,000 salary to qualify for the apartment.
State Controller DiNapoli said the state should have done more due diligence during its review.
Housing Division spokeswoman Catie Marshall defended the agency’s handling of Sans’ case.
“In 2014, when (the division) discovered that the tenant provided misleading information in order to rent the apartment, we flagged this fact for the management company, and as required, they acted swiftly to correct the situation. ”
Clinton Management declined to discuss Sans’ case, citing confidentiality rules.
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