Astoria Family's Illegal Airbnb Ring Raked In $5M, City Says

ASTORIA, QUEENS — New York City accused a group of Astoria residents of running a sprawling network of illegal Airbnb rentals across three boroughs in a lawsuit filed Wednesday.

The Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement said nearly 60,000 guests over the last four years were tricked into booking illegal Airbnb rentals in Queens, Manhattan and the Bronx that were unsanitary and unsafe.

Guests said in reviews that the rentals lacked windows, heat and hot water. They called the accommodations dirty and overcrowded and the Airbnb listings false and misleading, records show.

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The illegal rental operation raked in $5 million from Airbnb over a four-year period and removed more than 60 housing units from the market, the city says.

City officials say illegal short-term rentals cause neighborhoods to lose housing, including rent-stabilized apartments, that could go to permanent residents.

City and state laws bar property owners from renting out homes for fewer than 30 days, unless someone is also living there permanently.

"Across the city, communities are threatened by an industry that allows illegal operators to mislead visitors and turn housing into profit," Christian Klossner, executive director of the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement, said in a statement.

"New Yorkers deserve to have their housing protected, and visitors deserve safe, legal accommodations when they visit our city," Klossner added.

The rental operation also included apartments in nine of the 16 buildings at Acropolis Gardens, a formerly rent-stabilized co-op complex in Astoria, officials said.

The lawsuit filed Wednesday in Queens County Supreme Court names Astoria resident Elvis Tominovic, his partner and several of their relatives and friends as leaders of the operation, which involved apartments in 36 different buildings.

Tominovic, a licensed realtor, did not immediately return Patch's call requesting comment.

Tominovic's sister Romina, also named in the suit, is a lawyer and a former prosecutor for the Nassau County District Attorney's Office, according to her law firm's website. She did not immediately return a call requesting comment.

Listings were posted on Airbnb, Booking.com and HomeAway, according to court records.

"To thwart the city’s enforcement efforts, defendants not only coach the transient guests to lie about their stays, but they have also misleadingly instructed transient guests to deny access for inspections and to refuse answering the inspectors’ questions, with the goal of: 'Let’s keep Airbnb alive!'" the complaint says.

The Mayor's Office of Special Enforcement, was established in 2006 to address quality-of-life issues but has focused on targeting illegal short-term rentals in recent years.

The lawsuit is the first that the office has brought against an alleged Airbnb operator in Queens. Other cases have targeted operations in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Staten Island.

"We have long said that we want to work with the city on a regulatory framework that will provide for effective enforcement against illegal hotel operators," an Airbnb spokesperson said in a statement.

"After working with the city and providing data in response to valid legal process, we will continue to urge the city to come to the table, so that we can find a solution that addresses our shared enforcement priorities while still protecting the rights of regular New Yorkers."

The suits aren't the only front in New York City's crackdown on Airbnb.

The City Council passed a law last year to force home-sharing companies to disclose information about their hosts to the Office of Special Enforcement.

City officials argue that such information would help them go after illegal operations, but the law is tied up in court.

Patch editor Noah Manskar contributed reporting.