When Alison Weinsweig, 67, rented her luxury Westwood apartment to a tenant in 2020, she never anticipated it would turn into an almost three-year ordeal, let alone one that would set her back more than $200,000.
It was a “strain on many levels,” she told Business Insider.
“I felt terribly violated,” she added. “I never thought I’d get him out. I thought I’d be stuck with him for the rest of my life.”
When Weinsweig finally gained access to her property in April, she found it in an eerie state of disarray, which caused her to run out in tears.
Images provided to BI appear to show blood-stained floors, cracked countertops, and, disturbingly, a life-sized human dummy.
Courtesy of Alison Weinsweig
Now she’s left picking up the pieces, needing to fork out thousands in repairs, according to contractor estimates seen by BI, on top of the more than $170,000 she said she had already lost in unpaid rent.
Weinsweig, a semi-retired real estate broker, purchased the two-bedroom penthouse on Wilshire Boulevard in 2004, and lived there for a decade before moving to Pennsylvania to be with her unwell mother.
She had previously rented it out to two tenants without issue and expected Ramin Kohanim’s tenancy to be no different.
“He appeared to be a reasonable tenant,” she said, noting that a rental agency had vetted him, showing a Social Security Number, an acceptable credit score, and an account with significant funds.
But Weinsweig said that even if there were “red flags,” she would have likely overlooked them — she was too focused on her mom getting better.
She explained that the first year of Kohanim’s tenancy was unremarkable, despite some late payments. But after he signed on for a second year in July 2021, things got messy.
“He paid the first month and never paid anything again,” Weinsweig claims.
Kohanim and his attorney didn’t respond to BI’s requests for comment.
Despite repeated excuses, Weinsweig says she received no rent for months, prompting her to take legal action in January 2022.
According to legal documents reviewed by BI, the tenant was subject to the COVID-19 Tenant Relief Act, which prevented evictions for nonpayment of rent for those experiencing hardship due to the pandemic.
After Kohanim’s application for rental assistance was approved, Weinsweig received a fraction of the lost rent, and the case was automatically dismissed that summer.
Later that year, Weinsweig filed another lawsuit seeking possession of the premises and monetary damages, but it did not go as planned.
After dismissing her attorney and the case, she eventually rehired her first attorney and waited for LA County’s eviction Moratorium to expire in March 2023.
It would take months of deliberation before the parties reached a settlement, but under the terms of a stipulated judgment in November 2023, Kohanim was ordered to leave by April this year.
According to legal documents reviewed by BI, Weinsweig agreed to pay the tenant $20,000, half of which was to be held in trust only to be paid out once he had vacated the property and followed the terms and conditions.
Although this felt unfair, Weinsweig thought it would give her a sense of finality, she said.
Kohanim left the property in April, but Weinsweig alleges that her former tenant has yet to return the keys or fob. However, this was the least of her worries.
According to a transcript reviewed by BI, in a hearing on May 23 at the Superior Court of the State of California for the County of Los Angeles, Weinsweig told the court that the apartment was left in an “absolutely deplorable” condition.
She told BI and the court that when she arrived at the property, she saw cigarette burns and trash everywhere, and what appeared to be blood on the floors of the bedroom and bathroom.
Courtesy of Alison Weinsweig
Images provided to BI and the court appear to show the damage.
Other images provided to BI also appear to show a life-sized dummy on the bathroom floor, next to zip-tie packets. It’s unclear why they were there.
Quotes from contractors, shared with BI by Weinsweig, suggest repairs could cost upwards of $24,000.
During the hearing, Kohanim conceded that there was “discharge” on a mattress, though he and his attorney dismissed the rest of the damage as normal “wear and tear.”
The defense made no suggestion in the hearing that the images were staged or unreliable.
Kohanim’s attorney told the court that his client wasn’t the “best tenant in the world” or the cleanest, but he refuted that the apartment had been intentionally destroyed.
The judge disagreed, stating that “80 square feet of blood is not ordinary wear and tear.”
He ordered that the $10,000 being held be returned to Weinsweig and the case be unsealed.
Weinsweig said she wanted the case unsealed to share knowledge of her ordeal. For her, that is a small victory worth holding onto.
“I felt vindicated when they lifted the seal because not only was I subject to all these injustices… I was compelled to keep it quiet,” she said, adding: “This can’t go unnoticed.”
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