A Capitol Hill woman said the District of Columbia’s building inspection department bears some responsibility for the death threats that led to this week’s conviction of her next-door neighbor.
Victoria Kader, of the 1200 block of Maryland Avenue Northeast, said the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs refused to respond to her numerous complaints that her neighbor illegally built an addition to the back of his town house until she faxed a letter to the head of the illegal construction unit, Juan Scott, inspector Philip Thomas, and then-Mayor Anthony Williams.
Kader said she was shocked to find a copy of her complaint on the hallway floor, slipped in through the front door mailbox.
“I was scared,” she told The Examiner. “How did the fax that I sent to the government come back into my house?”
Scott is the building official accused of conspiring with a former DCRA official to bribe developers. His superiors suspended his authority and confiscated his law enforcement badge after The Examiner reported that he served a five-year prison sentence for felony weapons and drug charges. A federal judge last month convicted former DCRA official Yaw Agipong of attempting to bribe a government official.
DCRA spokeswoman Karyn-Siobhan Robinson said the agency investigated but could not determine how Kader’s complaint ended up in her home.
Robinson said the DCRA does not release the identities of people who file complaints.
“This is the first time an accusation like this has been brought to our attention,” she said.
Kader said neighbor Howard C. Heu, 61, began calling her names and said he knew she had reported him. In July, she said Heu followed her home and told her he was going to kill her. A D.C. Superior Court judge this week convicted Heu of making threats. He received a 60-day suspended sentence, five years probation and was ordered to have no contact with Kader.
But the dispute over the addition to the back of the Heu’s home continues. The first case was dropped in March 2006 after the DCRA inspector did not appear at the hearing.
The DCRA reissued the fines and notices of violation in October after Kader inquired about its status. The agency is now pursuing criminal charges against Hue and he’ll be arraigned next week on 17 counts of working without a permit and one count ofremoving a stop work order, according to the D.C. Attorney General’s office.
If you have further informationon this story, please contact Scott McCabe at 202-459-4950 or [email protected].
