Joseph Centanni: NJ landlord indicted for demanding sexual favors from 30 tenants in exchange for housing help
Warning: This article contains recollection of crime that may trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
ELIZABETH, NEW JERSEY: A landlord from New Jersey has been accused of allegedly demanding to engage in unwanted sexual favors with 30 tenants, including men and women who earned low wages, in exchange for housing help, stated the Union County Prosecutor's Office.
Charged for more than three dozen sexual crimes, Joseph Centanni, 75, was indicted last week with 23 second-degree sexual assault counts and 19 fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct counts, totaling to a 42-count indictment, prosecutors said on Wednesday, December 22, 2022.
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The landlord from Mountainside owned hundreds of residential rental units with 18 low-income properties in the city of Elizabeth where he was accused of demanding sexual favors from men and women aged 22 to 61 between 2013 and 2020.
The prosecutor's statement pointed out that “the defendant allegedly solicited the sex acts from his victims as a quid pro quo, agreeing to offer them rent reductions, a delay in an eviction, or other forms of financial assistance in exchange." “He also purportedly threatened tenants who hesitated or refused his advances with eviction or other retaliatory measures,” the statement added.
Since his arrest in June 2021, the 75-year-old landlord had been freed on court-issued pretrial monitoring of the case outcome. The accused had agreed to make a massive payment of $4.5 million as a move to solve a Fair Housing Act lawsuit that ensures the protection of tenants from harassment and discrimination, the Justice Department announced in 2021. Through a compensation fund, the agreed payment will be distributed to his victims.
The massive million-dollar agreement was the Department of Justice's largest monetary settlement obtained so far in a case of sexual abuse in housing allegations and a federal suit accusing the landlord of harassing his tenants sexually over a period of 15 years was settled.
Centanni has been permanently prohibited from dealing with residential properties which include owning or managing units and for the settlement of the case. He has sold all of his properties. He did not admit to any wrongdoing in settling the lawsuit.
According to the complaint filed in 2020 by the Department of Justice to sue Centanni over sex crimes, he threatened his residents and made them suffer “severe or pervasive sexual harassment.” In exchange for offering rental assistance, Centanni allegedly demanded the tenants engage in oral sex or inappropriately touched them without their consent.