The Manhattan District Attorney’s office has opened a criminal investigation into the corporate landlord of an Inwood building where four people died in a raging fire and where the city had logged more than 100 safety violations, the Daily News has learned.
Victor Arias, a 29-year-old tenant, was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide after he was caught on video flicking a lit cigarette into a pile of cardboard boxes on the first floor of 207 Dyckman St. near Broadway before the fatal fire erupted on May 4.
But District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office is looking at the tragedy more broadly.
Prosecutors declined to reveal details of the investigation, but it may include a probe of safety violations the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development filed against the building, The six-story building had 117 open violations, which include defective self-closing doors on the fourth and sixth floors and nonfunctioning smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, city records show
“In addition to prosecuting the individual who allegedly started the fire with his cigarette, the office is investigating the totality of the circumstances of the incident, including the potential for corporate liability,” a spokesman for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said Thursday. “The investigation is in the very initial stages.”
Four people died in the 12:30 a.m. fire, including 48-year-old Yolaine Diaz, a former editor for People en Español and her 73-year-old mother Ana Mirtha Lantigua.
Yolaine Diaz with her mother, Ana Mirtha. (Instagram / chicwantedny)
Also killed in the blaze was Lance Garcia, 25, who died after he led his mother, his sister and his grandfather out of their fourth-floor apartment to a fire escape two floors down, then turned around to help more people upstairs, relatives and neighbors said. On Sunday Garcia’s mother, who had been hospitalized in critical condition following the fire, died of her injuries, heartbroken family members said.
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Lance Garcia (pictured) was one of four people killed in the Inwood fire early May 4. (GoFundMe)
Several other people, including Garcia’s grandfather, remained hospitalized more than two weeks after the fire.
Besides 207 Dyckman St., five more buildings where Bick is listed in city building records as an owner or principal officer — including a six-floor, 23-apartment building next door to the fatal blaze — have 934 open violations, many of which could lead to fire hazards, according to lawsuits filed by the city’s Department of Housing Preservation and Development last month against Bick and other associates.
The city, according to court documents filed in those cases believes the safety violations are part of an ongoing campaign to chase out rent-stabilized tenants.
Before the Dyckman St. fire erupted, Jack Bick was already on the Public Advocate Jumaane Williams’ list of the city’s 100 worst landlords of 2025, officials said.
Four people were killed in an apartment building fire on Dyckman St. near Broadway in Inwood, Manhattan, early Monday, May 4, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
Bick ranks no. 80 on Williams’ watchlist — a ranking that’s based mathematically on the number of open violations from Nov. 2024 and to Oct. 2025.
“Landlords are obligated to keep their tenants safe at a bare minimum, and the worst landlords repeatedly fail to meet that standard. A community is mourning, and we can’t wait for the next tragedy to demand accountability and preventative action,” Williams said.
FDNY Chief of Department John Esposito told reporters after the fire that the flames spread into eight apartments in the building “because the door was open or had been left open.” The FDNY officials wouldn’t say if those doors were self-closing.
At neighboring 209 Dyckman St., where the city’s lawyers documented collapsing ceilings, blocked paths that cause fire hazards, pest infestations, and missing smoke and carbon monoxide detectors — several residents told the Daily News they’ve lodged their complaints via email, but the response has been glacial at best.
The building where the fire took place, 207 Dyckman St., was placed into the HPD’s Alternative Enforcement Program in January, just months before the fatal blaze.
Four people were killed in an apartment building fire on Dyckman St. near Broadway in Inwood, Manhattan, early Monday, May 4, 2026. (Theodore Parisienne / New York Daily News)
The program targets buildings with multiple housing maintenance code violations that need continued city monitoring. Once the building is in the program, city inspectors continually keep a eye on the property. Landlords are required to fix all heat and hot water violations, as well as 80% of the hazardous violations before daily fees start piling up.
During a recent HPD inspection, the city had cleared 85 of the violations filed against the building’s landlord, declaring the violations verified and resolved. But at the same time, as monitoring continued, new violations were issued for not clearing the prior conditions, HPD officials said.
In Queens the HPD took Bick and various associates to court for their buildings at 10-36 Bay 30 St., 10-08 Bay 30 St., 10-01 Hartman Lane and 29-03 Bessemund Ave. All four buildings, which altogether hold 75 apartments, have hazardous violations for not having self-closing doors and missing smoke detectors, court documents claim. The violations also include hazardous mold, rampant water leaks, roaches, mice, and broken paint and plaster in apartment ceilings and walls.
An email to JanJan Realty’s attorney was not immediately returned Thursday.
The Manhattan DA’s office encourages any city tenant facing systemic violations in their apartment building to reach out to their office’s Housing and Tenant Protection Unit at (212) 335-3300.