Current and former tenants tell similar stories of Stephenson's rages and alleged acts of downright cruelty. All but one requested anonymity because they say they fear retribution.

Two female tenants—one former, one current—say that as they headed off to work every day, Stephenson would trail them out the door and down the block, cursing them and calling them prostitutes, worthless sluts, and thieves...

Tenants say Stephenson routinely denies them use of the bathroom at night. The Jamaican immigrant says she had to urinate and defecate in a pail, which she would dump into the upstairs toilet in the morning before leaving the house. This situation is especially dehumanizing, tenants say, for a sick, elderly tenant who has trouble walking up the stairs on her own and struggles with the bucket. (The woman, a longtime tenant, declined to comment.) Another current tenant says that, for the better part of 2009, he had to take showers at a friend's house across the street because Stephenson locks the bathroom.

And then there's Bahram "Danny" Hakakian, whom public advocate Bill de Blasio has called a "slumlord" and actively rallied against, and who owns at least 5 buildings in Washington Heights:

Hakakian's buildings have more than 5,000 total violations. One Hakakian building, 1534 St. Nicholas Avenue, is on the city's worst-violations list, which is weighted by the seriousness of the violations and the number of violations per unit. The 28-unit building has 399 violations. A nearby 14-unit building has 290 violations (That's an average of 20 violations per unit. To give a sense of scale, landlords who average only three violations per unit qualify for de Blasio's Slumlord Watch List.)