Decrepit Kings Park houses frustrate neighbors, town

A pair of vacant, rodent-infested houses in Kings Park should be condemned and torn down by the Town of Smithtown, a local community group says.

Smithtown officials agree, but say their efforts to raze the buildings have been stymied because the properties' owner, a disbarred lawyer, is serving a federal prison sentence.

The lawyer, Frederic A. Powell, 56, of East Meadow, was sentenced last year to 4 years in the prison in Allentown, Pa., for conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. In a separate case, he pleaded guilty last year in Nassau County to attempted bribery of a Hempstead Town employee and mortgage fraud.

Smithtown Town Councilman Edward Wehrheim said Monday that officials want to demolish the houses, at 77 and 81 W. Main St., because they are unsafe, citing poor construction and at least five years of deterioration. But the town's hands are tied without Powell's legal consent.

"It's something, unfortunately, you have to take the proper steps . . . It's not that easy," he said. "Absolutely, the site should be cleared up. The residents have lived with that far too long."

In the federal case, prosecutors said Powell and another person obtained numerous home mortgage loans under false pretenses. In Nassau, Powell admitted offering $250 to a Hempstead Town employee to expedite a request for information and acknowledged stealing more than $50,000 worth of property and putting a person's name on a mortgage without her consent. He pleaded guilty last year to attempted bribery, grand larceny and criminal possession of a forged instrument.

In December, Powell was barred from practicing law in New York. His attorneys did not return calls and emails for comment.

The Kings Park Civic Association, in a Feb. 5 letter to Town Supervisor Patrick Vecchio and other town board members, said rodents scurry around the houses, and teenagers congregate on the properties. Wehrheim said the houses are likely uninhabitable.

Smithtown town attorney John Zollo said he is researching the town's options for razing the houses and he might offer suggestions by next week.

With Robert E. Kessler