Daniel Melamed: Arson Conspiracy, Mortgage Fraud, and Tenant Harassment

Daniel Melamed is a New York real estate developer who was sentenced in 2021 to 66 months in federal prison for conspiring to commit arson at three occupied residential buildings he wanted to empty and resell.¹ He was also convicted in state court of illegally evicting rent-stabilized tenants from a Crown Heights building and pleaded guilty to a mortgage fraud scheme that cost the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development more than $480,000, though that mortgage fraud conviction was later reversed on appeal. He was the first landlord arrested by New York’s Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force in 2015.²

The Arson Conspiracy

Between 2012 and 2013, Melamed directed an accomplice, Curtis Williams, to arrange fires at three occupied residential buildings he wanted vacated so he could redevelop and flip them. Williams hired another person to actually set the fires. Investigators eventually linked Melamed to five separate fires across the three properties.³

The targeted properties were on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn; on East 32nd Street in East Flatbush, Brooklyn; and a single-family home in Albertson, on Long Island.¹ The fires were set at night, while people were sleeping inside. At the Albertson house, a family escaped unharmed, but their pets were killed and most of their belongings were destroyed.⁴

Prosecutors said the motive was money. Melamed considered legal evictions and voluntary tenant buyouts too slow and too expensive; he wanted vacant properties he could flip quickly.³ According to the New York Daily News, Melamed and Williams used the code word “milk” for “fire” in their communications.⁵

The plot came apart when one of the people who physically set the fires was caught in an unrelated state case, cooperated with law enforcement, and implicated Williams. That trail led back to Melamed as the person who ordered and paid for the arsons.⁵ Melamed was detained in November 2019 and pleaded guilty on November 25, 2020, in the Southern District of New York to one count of conspiracy to commit arson under 18 U.S.C. § 844(n). The remaining counts were dismissed on the government’s motion.⁶

Federal Sentence and Current Status

On June 15, 2021, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan sentenced Melamed to 66 months in federal prison, three years of supervised release, a $500,000 forfeiture, and a $50,000 fine. The court recommended designation to the federal camp at Otisville, New York.¹⁶

Melamed was released from federal prison on September 5, 2023, and began his 36-month term of supervised release. Because of his ties to New Jersey, jurisdiction over the supervision was transferred from the Southern District of New York to the District of New Jersey.⁷

In 2025, he asked the court to end his supervised release early. On June 9, 2025, U.S. District Judge Castner denied the motion without prejudice. The judge called Melamed’s compliance “commendable” and noted he had paid the $500,000 forfeiture, $57,000 in restitution, and the $50,000 fine in full. Even so, the court said compliance alone was not enough and that Melamed had not shown any new or unforeseen circumstances that would justify cutting supervision short. The judge also pointed out that supervision did not appear to be interfering with his work, travel, or family life, and that the court had recently approved a trip to Cancún, Mexico, in April 2025.⁷ Melamed remains under federal supervision.

Tenant Harassment at 1578 Union Street

In 2012, Melamed bought a 14-unit multifamily building at 1578 Union Street in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, for $1.6 million.⁸ State prosecutors said he then set out to push rent-stabilized tenants out through dangerous construction and service shutoffs. He cut off heat during freezing temperatures, removed the boiler mid-winter without city approval, and exposed tenants to lead dust at concentrations up to 88 times the legal limit. Remaining tenants testified that they heated apartments with ovens, bathed with buckets, and covered their faces against construction dust.⁹

In June 2015, Melamed became the first person arrested by the Tenant Harassment Prevention Task Force, a joint city-state initiative launched that February. He was charged with unlawful eviction, endangering the welfare of a child, and filing false Department of Buildings documents claiming the building was vacant. He pleaded not guilty, and his attorney called the case “political grandstanding.”²¹⁰

A jury convicted him in June 2017 on three counts of unlawful eviction and acquitted him of the felony false-filing charge and the misdemeanor child endangerment charge. The conviction carried a potential sentence of up to one year in jail.⁸

Mortgage Fraud and the HUD Loss

In November 2016, Melamed was arraigned in a separate state case on charges including second-degree grand larceny, forgery, and residential mortgage fraud. Prosecutors said that between 2011 and 2014, he and six accomplices used shell corporations to execute fraudulent real estate transactions. In one, he used a fraudulent corporation supposedly owned by a former employee to buy a property for $250,000 in 2013 and sell it for $1.25 million the following year. In another, he and an associate submitted false paperwork inflating the associate’s income and falsely stating the associate would occupy a Hale Avenue property in Brooklyn, a residency requirement for a HUD-backed loan. When the associate defaulted two years later, HUD paid more than $480,000 to cover the loss.¹¹ Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said Melamed “stole money from taxpayers and cheated the public in order to boost his bottom line.”¹²

Melamed pleaded guilty in November 2017 and was convicted in Kings County Supreme Court in February 2018 on one count of residential mortgage fraud in the second degree, two counts of second-degree grand larceny, two counts of attempted grand larceny, four counts of forgery, and four counts of criminal possession of a forged instrument.¹³

The Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed that conviction in December 2019. It held that the search warrant used to seize evidence from Melamed’s businesses was unconstitutionally broad because it did not identify the crimes under investigation and effectively authorized a general search of his business records and electronic devices. The appellate court vacated his guilty plea, suppressed the seized evidence, and sent the case back to Kings County. The available record does not show whether the state pursued a retrial or new charges after the remittal.¹³

His Real Estate Business

Court records show Melamed ran multiple businesses from a shared location, including entities called 1578 Union Street Realty Corporation and Dream Home Realty. Beyond the Crown Heights building, he owned or managed at least six other buildings in New York City.¹⁴² According to the appellate court’s description of the seized evidence, his business model involved buying occupied residential buildings, running renovations that made them uninhabitable, and pressuring rent-stabilized tenants to leave. Prosecutors also alleged he engaged in self-dealing and lured immigrants into buying property with promises of free renovations that were never intended to be performed.

1
ATF. Real Estate Developer Sentenced to Over Five Years in Prison for Conspiring to Commit Arson
2
The New York Times. Brooklyn Landlord Is Arrested in Tenant Harassment Inquiry
3
U.S. Department of Justice. Real Estate Developer Sentenced to Over Five Years in Prison for Conspiring to Commit Arson
4
New York Post. Notorious NYC Slumlord Sentenced to 5 Years for Arson Scheme
5
New York Daily News. NYC Developer Sentenced to More Than 5 Years in Prison for Arson Plot to Drive Out Tenants
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CourtListener. United States v. Melamed
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GovInfo. United States v. Melamed, 3:24-cr-00122-GC
8
The Real Deal. Landlord Daniel Melamed Found Guilty of Illegally Evicting Tenants
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CityLand. Schneiderman Announces Guilty Verdict Against Harassing Brooklyn Landlord
10
New York Post. Slumlord Arrested for Turning Off Heat, Dangerous Renovations
11
Newsday. AG: Developer From Great Neck Indicted in Fraud Schemes
12
The Real Deal. Notorious NYC Landlord Pleads Guilty to Mortgage Fraud, Grand Larceny
13
NY Courts. People v. Melamed
14
NY Courts. People v. Melamed, Appellate Division Decision