Shreveport City Court Judge Mary Mudrick said, “Each one of you are innocent until proven guilty”, during the Tuesday morning criminal court hearing. Among the attendees was attorney Dhu Thompson for his absentee client, owner of Amar Shreveport Holdings, Yacov Smouha, who is facing several misdemeanor criminal charges, including criminal blight for the condition of several Shreveport apartment complexes.
“Not guilty to all accounts”, Thompson told the judge when asked what they were going to plea.
Amar Holdings owns both The Pines and Villa Note apartment complexes, which have both recently made headlines because of their run-down condition. The city recently gave residents notice their water would be shut off due to non-payment by the owner.
The trial is set for August 2.
“We need you here and we need your client present,” said Mudrick.
“I’m very aware of how these cases work and feel very confident in handling this case,” Thompson told The Times moments after he left the courtroom, “It’s just a matter of diving into the discovery and seeing what the allegations are, seeing what if any resolution is being put on the table, and preparing for an August 2nd trial date.”
While Smouha was not in attendance, Shreveport councilwoman Tabitha Taylor was there.
“My constituents bear the brunt of this landlord,” she said.
“I wasn’t expecting him to be here today,” Taylor added, “What I am expecting is for him to be here on August 2, and I intend for him to face the charges that have been brought against him for the injustice that he’s been plagued upon all of the residents in the city of Shreveport.”
“You’re not a resident of Shreveport, Louisiana, so you don’t have an attachment to the residents that live here,” Taylor said speaking to Smouha through the press, “You’re not here, but wherever you are you’re somewhere probably with a solid roof over your head with clean running water, you don’t have raw sewage, you don’t have rats, and you don’t have rodents.”
More: Trash, rodents, missing management: Go inside some of Shreveport’s problem apartments
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: Shreveport apartment owner pleads not guilty to criminal charges
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