Attorney General Kathy Jennings announces Adolph Jay Pokorny’s nearly 50-year problematic tenure as a Wilmington landlord is over, resolving a multiyear Department of Justice (DOJ) investigation.
The investigation included close to four dozen interviews and months of deliberations with Pokorny, who DOJ says endangered his tenants’ health and safety by deliberately avoiding necessary repairs at his North Adams Street properties.
Pokorny’s mismanagement of his North Adams Street properties led them to fall into ruin in May 2022, but Pokorny elected to rent them out as they were by preying on less fortunate tenants.
“As explained in the complaint filed by the DOJ, Pokorny’s neglectful and negligent practices as a landlord over many years came to a head one day in May of 2022 when people living in 27 apartments spread across seven buildings on Adams Street lost their homes. It is only fitting that the person responsible for this tragedy should lose the ability to cause more heartbreak and despair," Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki said in a statement
Pokorny's decisions violated a prior court order and the law, and Jennings says he must now sell all of his Delaware rental properties and leave the apartment management business within 30 months.
“The result of the judgment in court could not have included that, and so this was a settlement arrived at to be a global settlement that gets him out of the landlord business," Jennings explained.
Pokorny will also pay a $150,000 fine with $5,000 headed to each of the affected tenants.
He will also be subject to a suspended judgement of an additional $600,000 if he fails to abide by the agreement.
“The Department of Justice — our job, and I don't think any other law firm in the state has this job, is to really protect the people we serve, and I am so very proud of the work that was done to hold Pokorny to account," Jennings said.
DOJ says victims have been given housing assistance resources, with a number of the victims being house in the Hope Center following the incident.
