DC Attorney General Brian Schwalb

What You Can Do About High Pepco Electricity Bills in D.C. Financial assistance, energy audits, and avoiding third-party suppliers can help.

What can be done about your expensive Pepco bill?

Financial assistance, energy audits, and avoiding third-party suppliers can help, @samdelgado.bsky.social reports:

Calling DC middle school students! 🗣️

Applications are OPEN for the national Do the Write Thing challenge.

Submit an essay or poem about how violence impacts your community by Sunday, March 15.

Apply and spread the word: oag.dc.gov/dtwt

Consumer and Tenant Response Team Call 202-442-9828 Email consumer.protection@dc.gov Visit oag.dc.gov/complaint Issue with your landlord? Problem with a ticket purchase? Locked out of your social media? Trouble with health insurance? Challenges with a contractor? Dispute with a business? Complaint about a car dealership? Restaurant or hotel matter? Scammed by a corporation? Heat, AC, water, or electricity outage? Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia

New name, same purpose: supporting DC consumers and tenants! 🤝

Starting today, OAG's FREE mediation program is serving residents under a new name: Consumer and Tenant Response

📱 Call 202-442-9828
📧 Email consumer.protection@dc.gov
🔗 Visit oag.dc.gov/complaint

We are here for you!

Attorney General Schwalb Secures $1.75 Million Wage Theft Judgment Against District Restaurant and Its Owner

Announcement and court judgment:

The Court's judgment vindicates the workers who courageously came forward.

Although the restaurant has closed, justice is still in motion.

OAG will do everything in its power to enforce the judgment against Talea and Hadani — and to collect the stolen wages that workers are owed.

Then, Hadani used his extensive restaurant industry network to contact fired workers' new employers to try to get them fired again.

The Court awarded over $1.33 million in restitution to 95 former Talea workers.

It also ordered Talea and Hamdani to pay $420,000 in penalties to the District.

Worst of all, workers who spoke out faced threats and retaliation.

Hadani illegally ordered staff not to discuss their pay with each other and threatened them with baseless defamation lawsuits.

And when he suspected some workers of reporting Talea's wage theft to authorities, he fired them.

Hadani also denied workers paid sick leave, leaving workers unpaid when they fell ill.

And to keep their job when they called out sick, Hadani illegally demanded a doctor's note.

A worker who couldn't afford a doctor — due to being underpaid by Hadani — was fired for not providing a note.

We sued Talea and its owner in 2025 over a flurry of workplace violations.

Talea's staff were paid less than half the tipped minimum wage, ordered to work off the clock, and denied overtime pay for overtime hours.

They did not receive itemized paystubs, making it easier to conceal the wage theft.

DC WORKER JUSTICE: We won a $1.75 million wage theft judgment against Talea Ristorante and its owner, Hamza Hadani.

Workers at the now-closed restaurant faced shocking levels of exploitation and retaliation.

This judgment vindicates the workers who courageously came forward to report these abuses.

So far, nearly 700 DC homeowners have claimed $500 refunds for this title insurance kickback scheme we uncovered in 2024.

📧 Check your inbox for a claim notice
📮 Review your mail for a claim notice
⤵️ Contact us with any questions

thank you @dcattorneygeneral.bsky.social !

Attorney General Schwalb Secures Settlements That Will Improve Living Conditions at Two Ward 7 Apartment Complexes

Together, Benning Courts and Azeeze Bates Apartments contain more than 180 apartments.

Hundreds of residents will benefit from the critical repairs and improved maintenance resulting from our investigation and the cooperation of the owners and property managers.

Our announcement:

Now, under the settlements we secured, the building owners and managers will also:

✅ Make additional building repairs

✅ Perform regular pest control treatment

✅ Conduct yearly preventative maintenance

✅ Address emergency issues within 24 hours

✅ Receive annual OAG inspections until 2028

These are serious issues, and they were met with a serious response.

The owners — Gales Place Associates and Azeeze Bates — and the property management company — Horning — cooperated with our investigation.

And they worked collaboratively to remedy the violations we identified at the properties.

We opened our investigation after receiving complaints from Benning Courts and Azeeze Bates tenants.

We uncovered evidence of widespread housing code violations that threatened tenants' health and safety.

This included rodents, mold, water leaks, broken and unsecured doors and windows, and more.

Benning Courts apartment building

Azeeze Bates Apartment Building

DC HOUSING WIN: We secured needed improvements to housing conditions at two Ward 7 apartment complexes.

After an OAG investigation, the owners and managers of Benning Courts and Azeeze Bates Apartments are making repairs and improving maintenance.

All DC residents deserve safe and healthy homes.

Real estate firm sued for alleged housing discrimination scheme in DC Red Oak Capital Holdings is accused of discriminating against District tenants who do not use housing vouchers.

DC already has a severe shortage of affordable housing.

Red Oak is making our housing crisis even worse by wiping out rent-controlled units, discriminating against DC residents without subsidies, and financing deals to push out tenants from their buildings.

Enough is enough.

DC's Human Rights Act bans discrimination based on source of income.

By financing deals that depend on discrimination against low-income and moderate-income DC residents without housing subsides, Red Oak violated the Human Rights Act.

We are suing to end this illegal and discriminatory scheme.

Red Oak's discriminatory lending practices impacted more than 300 rent-controlled apartments in Wards 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Low-income and moderate-income DC residents without housing subsidies are now shut out of these rent-controlled units in a city where affordable housing is increasingly rare.

And in two cases — The Wiltshire in Ward 6 and 1525 19th St SE in Ward 8 — Red Oak lent to developers who promised to remove existing tenants from the buildings and replace them with voucher holders.

For The Wiltshire loan, Red Oak said replacing tenants "will be key to his loan exit prospects.”

In at least seven cases, Red Oak financed the purchase of apartment buildings that developers planned to rent almost exclusively to voucher holders.

🏢 Jennifer Apartments
🏢 1017 17th Place NE
🏢 Wiltshire Apartments
🏢 Hawaii Avenue
🏢 Minnesota Commons
🏢 1525 19th St SE
🏢 Wilmington Place SE

Red Oak's practices effectively require developers to charge more in rent than units' rent-controlled rates.

Its appraisals assume tenants without vouchers will be excluded from most or all units.

And to ensure its revenue projections are met, Red Oak has the right to set rents for all units.

Red Oak is a real estate lender.

DC's rent control law allows landlords leasing to a tenant with a housing voucher to exempt a rent-controlled unit from rent control.

Red Oak’s loans enable developers to abuse this exemption by discriminating against tenants without vouchers to maximize profits.

NEW: We are suing Red Oak Capital Holdings for discrimination.

Red Oak bankrolls developers like the Razjooyans to buy buildings for the explicit purpose of renting exclusively to voucher holders.

The scheme is illegal, discriminatory, and wipes out hundreds of units of affordable housing in DC.

Using a law deployed against mob bosses, D.C. files suit against a landlord The suit, filed by D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb, claims the landlord and two of his family members enriched themselves while leaving tenants in squalid, unsafe conditions.

Neglecting housing conditions.
Cheating lenders and banks.
Defrauding the District.
Exploiting housing programs.
Wiping out affordable housing.
Leaving neighborhoods blighted.

The Razjooyans' illegal scheme enriches them and leaves everyone else in DC worse off.

We will hold them accountable.

This is exactly the kind of accountability tenants have been asking for—combating slumlords who are making millions off neglect and fraud while worsening DC's housing crisis.
 
Grateful to OAG for using every tool available to hold these landlords accountable and protect DC tenants.

NEWS: @dcattorneygeneral.bsky.social is suing notorious D.C. slumlord Sam Razjooyan and two family members under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law used to dismantle the mob. He says they ran a "sprawling illegal enterprise" that mostly impacted low-income residents.

No more playing whack-a-mole.

We are confronting this fraudulent housing scheme head on by suing under the federal RICO Act, DC's False Claims Act, and our consumer protection law.

OAG is fighting to secure restitution for tenants, impose penalties, and dismantle the Razjooyan slumlord empire.