NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A Long Island real estate developer has been sentenced to more than five years in prison for hiring a man to set fires at his properties in an effort to force tenants out, prosecutors say.
A judge handed the 66-month federal prison sentence down to Daniel Melamed, 43, of Great Neck, on Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York said in a press release.
"Almost a decade ago, Daniel Melamed decided that he could use his power and influence as a real estate developer to burn families out of their homes, homes that he wanted to develop and flip at a profit," U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss said in a statement.
"As he learned when he was first arrested almost two years ago and was reminded again today, we will fight fire with fire and together with our partners… bring to justice anyone who seeks to terrorize the members of this community through arson," she added.
Melamed pleaded guilty to hiring Curtis Williams, 52, to set fires while tenants at at least three of his residential buildings in Brooklyn and on Long Island were sleeping between 2011 and 2013, prosecutors said.
Williams ended up hiring a third person to set the blazes, according to prosecutors.
One of Melamed properties, a single-family home in Albertson, New York, was "largely incinerated" by one of the fires, killing the family's pets and destroying most of their belongings, prosecutors said. No one else was injured in the blazes.
Williams pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to commit arson, as well as multiple counts of arson, this past April, the attorney's office said.
In addition to his prison sentence, Melamed was sentenced to three years of supervised release, slapped with a $50,000 fine and ordered to forfeit $500,000, prosecutors said.
