Fugitive Slumlord Sentenced to 7 Years in County Jail

Los Angeles’ most notorious slumlord, who spent eight years on the lam, was sentenced Friday to almost seven years in County Jail.

Municipal Judge David Doi ordered Vijaynand Sharma to serve his original 23-month jail term, imposed in 1987 for two cases involving five filthy, rat-infested hotels and apartment buildings, plus five more years for violating his probation by fleeing.

“This sends a strong message to criminals that flight to avoid prosecution is not going to do you any good,” said City Atty. James Hahn. “Once you are arrested, there is a big price to pay.”

Doi directed Sharma, 48, to begin serving his jail time immediately and told the Sheriff’s Department to bar Sharma from early release or work furlough programs. He also ordered Sharma to pay $153,000 in fines and costs, and more than $284,000 in delinquent bills to the city Department of Water and Power.

Sharma, who once vowed he would rather die than be captured, was last seen by authorities living in his sister’s 7,000-square-foot mansion in Rancho Palos Verdes four years ago. As officials prepared to arrest him, Sharma escaped.

In the intervening years he was seen in Nevada and finally in Liberty, a rural town in New York about 40 miles from the Pennsylvania border. Sharma, who used the pseudonym Devon Rao, was captured May 10.

After becoming a fugitive in 1988, Sharma fled to Edinburgh, Scotland, where he ran a small inn. It was impossible for authorities to arrest him because the United States had no extradition treaty for misdemeanors, Hahn said. In his effort to flee the law, Sharma is also believed to have traveled through India and Canada.

“We’ve been very frustrated over the years--we always seemed to be one step behind Sharma,” Hahn said.

Sharma was first prosecuted in 1986 when he refused to provide water to tenants at two apartment buildings, one in the Westlake area and the other in Hollywood.

A year later, he was given a 90-day jail sentence for violating the conditions of his probation by allowing housing code violations at the Cameo Hotel at the time of a fire. Four months later, in December 1987, a judge issued a 20-month jail sentence for his role in allowing 112 code violations at the Cameo Hotel and four other properties. The slumlord fled before serving any of the 23 months.

“Sharma caused a lot of pain and misery for the people who had to live in his building,” Hahn said. “He really never cared about them at all; that’s why he was convicted in the first place.”