Xingtoa Liu, Juan Lin plead guilty to charges they were running illegal Stony Brook rooming house

The owners of a Stony Brook house that was severely damaged in July 2 fire pleaded not guilty Thursday in a Suffolk County court to charges that they were running an illegal rooming house.

Xingtoa Liu and his wife, Juan Lin, of East Setauket, were released without bail after their arraignment in Sixth District Court in Patchogue. Liu's name appears in town property records as Xingtao Liu.

Liu and Lin each were charged with 30 counts of violating town codes, including operating an illegal rooming house, failing to install smoke detectors, failing to obtain building and rental permits, and installing illegal key locks on interior doors.

If convicted, each faces hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines and up to 90 days in Suffolk County jail, town officials said. 

Liu and Lin left court without speaking to reporters. Their lawyer, Vincent Trimarco of Smithtown, declined to comment.

Brookhaven Town officials said the house, at 19 Salem Dr., had been occupied by at least a dozen Stony Brook University students when a fire broke out in a second-floor bathroom at 4:15 a.m. on July 2. No residents were injured, officials said.

The cause of the fire was undetermined, and the house was condemned.

In court Thursday, senior assistant town attorney John H. Rouse said firefighters "got there in time to prevent the fire from spreading," but flames infiltrated the bathroom walls. He said tenants were fortunate to escape unharmed.

"This goes beyond" code violations, Rouse told District Court Judge Patricia M. Blake. "This was a matter of life and death." 

Brookhaven officials on Wednesday said four bedrooms had been converted into 10 living spaces, and that 18 mattresses were found in the house. People appeared to be living in the attic and basement, officials said.

Building inspectors had found refrigerators and electrical cooking devices such as microwave ovens and hot plates in nearly every room, officials said.

Liu faces up to $180,000 in fines if convicted; Lin faces up to $256,000 in fines, Rouse said.

Lin's potential fines are more than her husband's because she had pleaded guilty last July to failing to obtain a rental permit for the property, Rouse said. As part of her plea, she agreed to seek a permit but failed to do so, he said.

Tenants at the house paid $750 to $950 each in monthly rent, Rose said in court, adding Lin and Liu made more than $12,000 from monthly rent payments.

Rouse said Liu and Lin had ordered residents of the house to disperse before authorities arrived to extinguish the fire.

"They told these tenants, who were all college students, to disappear," Rose said. "They told them to leave the scene."

Trimarco did not respond to the allegation.

Lin appeared before Blake in a white baseball cap, sunglasses and a mask. Blake questioned whether Lin needed them for medical reasons.

"As a judge, I am entitled to see ... who I am arraigning," Blake told Lin.

Lin said she had a red eye but removed the hat, mask and sunglasses.