Articles for I'Jaz Ja'ciel

Oct 10

2025

Watch: IP’s Geoff Kelly on Capital Tonight

Buffalo’s mayoral election is 25 days away. State Sen. Sean Ryan, the Democratic nominee, is the odds-on favorite to prevail. Investigative Post’s Geoff Kelly appeared Thursday on Spectrum News’ Capital Tonight with Susan Arbetter to discuss the state of the race, as well as the brewing fight among Ryan’s fellow Democrats over who will fill his Senate seat come January. The scrapping over Ryan’s seat, which has been unfolding in the background for months, burst into the open on Thursday, when Ryan’s longtime political ally, Assembly Member Jonathan Rivera, declared his candidacy for the job. Zellner and Rivera both have[...]

Posted 1 day ago

Oct 7

2025

Pushing again for lead inspections in Buffalo

From left: Matthew Parham, Daniel Corbitt, Sarah Wooton, Dawn Wells-Clyburn and Alex Fehrman Updated Monday at 4:49 p.m. A group of tenants and community organizations on Tuesday appealed the dismissal of a lawsuit that sought more vigorous enforcement of a City of Buffalo program aimed at lead hazards in rental housing. The Partnership for the Public Good along with three other organizations and four tenants filed a lawsuit last July in State Supreme Court against the city. The lawsuit alleged that the Department of Permits and Inspections was failing to provide a clean and healthful environment for its residents by[...]

Posted 4 days ago

Sep 30

2025

Buffalo’s Housing Court: Fewer fines, lax collections

The City of Buffalo over the past six years has failed to collect $6.5 million in Housing Court fines that could help to address the city’s budget deficits. Since January 2020, Housing Court judges have issued $7,024,200 in fines, according to data Investigative Post obtained from the New York State Office of Court Administration. The city has collected $481,500, or 8.5 percent of the fines issued. And between 2017 and 2019, the city failed to collect another $6.8 million in Housing Court fines, according to city records. That’s more than $13 million the city has left on the table over[...]

Posted 2 weeks ago

Sep 11

2025

Buffalo forfeits more than $1 million in federal lead funds

Signage in a lead abatement training facility. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. The City of Buffalo will return more than half of a $2 million federal grant it received in 2021 for lead hazard remediation. Investigative Post in May reported that the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency had spent only about a quarter of its Lead Hazard Reduction Program grant funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. BURA officials told Investigative Post in a statement that “the program remains in progress” and that $796,050.71 in grant funds have been earmarked or spent on lead remediation. That’s $300,000 more than[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 10

2025

How the investigation on police misconduct was done

This story is co-published with The New York Times and New York Focus. It’s a followup to yesterday’s story about police officers who drive drunk, crash cars, and escape meaningful consequences. In the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing at the hands of Minneapolis police officers in 2020, New York State repealed a law that for decades kept the disciplinary records of its police officers secret. The New York Times and New York Focus, a nonprofit newsroom, have since gathered more than 10,000 such files from around half of New York State’s nearly 500 law enforcement agencies. The documents, most[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 9

2025

Police who drink, drive and avoid charges

Ronald W. Wilson, an investigator with the New York State Police, admitted to drinking and driving this vehicle in 2021 but received only a traffic ticket. Photo courtesy of the Orchard Park Police Department. This story is co-published with the New York Times and New York Focus. An Orchard Park police officer found the man on the shoulder of Southwestern Boulevard, standing near his crumpled black BMW, arguing with his girlfriend. It was 11 p.m. on a Saturday in 2021. The BMW had slammed into a Jeep, smashing its left taillight. White high heels were toppled on their sides on[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 5

2025

Buffalo landlord hit with hefty penalty for lead contamination

Farhad Raiszadeh, left, in Buffalo Housing Court in 2024. Photo by I’Jaz Ja’ciel. A Buffalo landlord whose lead-contaminated homes poisoned more than dozen children will pay a $515,000 settlement, the state attorney general announced Friday. “For years, Farhad Raiszadeh and the Raiszadeh Group failed to protect tenant families despite receiving repeated warnings and violations. Today, we are ensuring that hundreds of thousands of dollars will be invested directly into making these homes safe,” Attorney General Letitia James said in a statement announcing the settlement. The attorney general in March 2023 sued Raisazdeh, his wife Shohre Zahedi and four of their[...]

Posted 1 month ago

Sep 3

2025

Niagara County Dems oppose Wojtaszek’s return to OTB

Niagara County Democrats oppose the idea of allowing former Western Regional Off-Track Betting Corp. boss Henry Wojtaszek to return to the organization as a member of its board of directors. They also conceded on Tuesday, in the wake of an Investigative Post report about Wojtaszek expressing interest in an OTB board seat, that they lack the votes needed to block such a move in the county legislature, where Republicans outnumber them by an 11-to-4 margin. The legislature’s minority leader, Chris Robins, D-Niagara Falls, said he’s heard about the possibility of Wojtaszek replacing Elliot Winter as the county’s OTB board representative[...]

Posted 1 month ago