New Hampshire Man Pleads Guilty in Lead Paint Poison Case

From Housing News Highlights, December 20, 2001 - Supplement (from Sherwood Research Associates)

NH - New Hampshire Man Pleads Guilty in Lead Paint Poison Case Associated Press -- 12/19/2001 -- CONCORD, N.H. (AP) -- A property manager and his company pleaded guilty to federal offenses Wednesday in a case that grew out of the lead-poisoning death of a 2-year-old girl who had apparently eaten paint chips in her apartment. Under the plea agreement, James Aneckstein, 36, of Manchester, will get 15 months in jail and a fine of up $40,000 at sentencing March 26. His company could be fined up to $3.2 million. Federal prosecutors said it is the first case in the nation in which a rental property manager was charged with criminal offenses for failing to provide the required lead hazard warnings. The only other lead case prosecuted criminally involved the Maryland owner of numerous apartment buildings, mainly in Washington.

He pleaded guilty in July and will be sentenced next month. Normally such cases are handled with civil or administrative penalties. ``Criminal sanctions are only used in egregious cases, such as this one,'' said Michael Hubbard, agent in charge of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Environmental Protection Agency in Boston. ``This underscores the significance of why environmental crimes matter. They often have to do with greed at the expense of human health and the environment.'' In both criminal cases, the defendants not only failed to comply with the law, but also lied about it.

The Manchester case grew out of the death last year of Sunday Abek, a refugee from the Sudan who had moved to the city with her mother and three siblings 12 days before she died. Officials said they believe she ate lead paint chips and dust in their apartment. City health officials said it was the first case of a child dying of lead poisoning in Manchester in at least 25 years. Under federal law, anyone selling or renting property must give buyers and renters information on lead poisoning -- and particularly the danger to children -- and get a signed acknowledgment that they provided the information. Prosecutors said Aneckstein supplied federal authorities with falsified forms that certified the girl's mother and other tenants in the apartment building had been given the required lead disclosures. (END)

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Background on the case from Boston Globe

Lead paint kills young refugee -- Boston Globe, 12/20/2001 -- by Mac Daniel -- CONCORD, N.H. -

 Sunday James Abek survived a lot in her short life. She trekked with her family from Sudan to Egypt as an infant, survived 11/2 years in a squalid refugee camp, and made it safely to Manchester, N.H. by the time she neared her third birthday. Then, on April 21, 2000, after just one month of American life, Abek fell into a coma and died two days later, becoming the first child to die of lead poisoning in the United States in 10 years. Doctors found a blood-lead count six times the level that would normally require a child to be hospitalized.

The culprit turned out to be the lead paint chips and dust in apartment 5 at 102 Bridge St. in Manchester, where the malnourished child had spent a month picking small holes in a bedroom wall to eat the plaster, and nibbling on the abundant chips on the outdoor porch. Yesterday, Abek's tragic story came one step closer to ending when, for the first time in New England history, the landlord who rented the apartment pleaded guilty to federal criminal charges in connection with the lead poisoning case. Although he was not blamed for the girl's death, he pleaded guilty to failing to tell Sunday's parents of the lead paint danger and then trying to cover up that failure. ''Landlords who fail to notify tenants about the dangers of lead paint perpetuate the hazards of lead poisoning,'' said New Hampshire Assistant Attorney General John C. Cruden. ''Dishonesty during the investigation is misconduct that will not be tolerated.''

Lead paint has been banned since 1978, but, 23 years later, 1,300 children are lead-poisoned in Massachusetts alone each year. Property owners are required to protect children age 6 and under from exposure to lead paint, but violations are seldom prosecuted. Instead, the parents of lead-poisoned children commonly sue property owners. In fact, James T. Aneckstein, the property manager for 102 Bridge St., is only the second man nationwide charged with federal crimes related to lead-hazard disclosure requirements that were enacted in 1992, and took effect in 1996.

Yesterday, a visibly weary Aneckstein, 36, admitted in federal court in Concord that he falsified documents claiming he had told Abek's parents about the lead paint danger. When he is sentenced in March, Aneckstein could face a maximum 15 months in prison and a criminal fine of up to $40,000, part of a growing campaign by the Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency to prosecute offenders of the lead paint disclosure law. Lead poisoning can impair a child's central nervous system, kidneys, and bone marrow, and at high levels can cause coma, convulsions, and death. Aneckstein's lawyer, Steven M. Gordon, said after yesterday's hearing that his client had felt ''the full weight of the government upon his shoulders.''

''This is very traumatic,'' Gordon said. ''But any suggestion that Jim did something that caused that child's unfortunate death is simply wrong.'' Aneckstein, whom Gordon said will be a parent himself soon, became the focus of a federal investigation shortly after Abek's death. He is the sole owner of JTA Real Estate Brokerage and Property Management Inc., of Manchester, and he oversaw upkeep and rent payments for several apartment buildings around the city. As part of the 1992 federal lead paint disclosure law, Aneckstein was required to notify residents renting apartments in housing built before 1978 about the dangers of lead paint - even if he didn't believe there was lead paint in the house. The law requires signed disclosures that the tenants had been notified at the time of signing a lease. However, when Sunday Abek and her family arrived at 102 Bridge St., Aneckstein admitted yesterday, he did not give them the lead paint warning. It's unclear whether he knew about the exceptionally high lead levels in the house.

When the child died, EPA inspectors asked Aneckstein to provide evidence of such notification. Initially he could not, and later he gave investigators notices that had been backdated and appeared to be doctored. In one case, prosecutors said, a form dated August 1997 was written on a document manufactured in 1998. In another, they said a whitening-out liquid had been used. Sunday Abek's mother, Mary Aloruot, and father, James Abek, have long since moved out of the building, which is no longer managed by Aneckstein. The couple remain in town, however, represented by a lawyer who said language barriers prevent them from talking to the news media. ''Mary appreciates the coordinated federal effort in bringing someone to answer for their role in this otherwise preventable tragedy,'' said her lawyer, Ronald L. Abramson.

The eight apartments at 102 Bridge St. continue to be filled with recently arrived refugees from Kosovo, Sudan, Rwanda, and Zimbabwe. Tenants yesterday said workers had been deleading some apartments but were uncertain if the entire building, built in 1910, was lead-free. Athanase Hagengimana, a research fellow at Harvard Medical School, said many of the tenants have never been told about Sunday Abek's death. ''And most of these people don't know what lead is, or the dangers,'' he said. ''They are hardly speaking English.'' Children played around Hagengimana, near a back staircase that had recently been replaced and remained paint-free. Down the street at the city health department, Richard DiPentima said he can't forget the case of Sunday Abek, which prompted testing of all newly arrived refugees for lead levels. ''Here's afamily that went through so much for so many years,'' DiPentima said. ''It just seems like it wasn't fair, not that there's anything fair in life.''