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1997 Sylvia,Camden; New York City
Topic Started: Mar 1 2007, 11:39 AM (793 Views)
oldies4mari2004
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Freed Landlord Denies Role in Disappearance


In November 1997, a Lower Manhattan couple, Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan, disappeared -- and have never been found. The police said they vanished on a day when they had argued with their landlord, Robert Rodriguez, over a lack of heat and threatened to withhold the $300-a-month rent on their loft at 76 Pearl Street.

Mr. Rodriguez, above, became a focus of scrutiny in the widely publicized case, but no evidence was found linking him to the couple's disappearance, and nobody has been arrested in the case. Ms. Sylvia was an artist and real estate agent and Mr. Sullivan an actor and art gallery employee.

But other information uncovered about Mr. Rodriguez's affairs led to federal and state charges of tax evasion and credit card fraud, and he pleaded guilty.

In August, Mr. Rodriguez, 63, was released after nearly six years in prison in those cases. As he has always done, he ''absolutely, positively denies'' involvement in his tenants' disappearance, his lawyer, Michael Rosen, said last week. ''He's trying to get his life back together.''

A Police Department spokesman said only that the investigation of the couple's disappearance was continuing.



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METROPOLITAN DESK


Landlord of Missing Manhattan Couple to Be Paroled in Month


By SUSAN SAULNY (NYT) 689 words
Published: July 27, 2002

It has been five years since Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan disappeared from their loft in Lower Manhattan. The disappearance of the couple, who are presumed dead, has become one of the most frustrating of the city's unsolved crimes.
The man who was the focus of intense suspicion in the case, Robert Rodriguez, the couple's landlord, has never been definitively linked to the disappearance, although investigators say that Ms. Sylvia and Mr. Sullivan were last seen in November 1997 after arguing with him about a lack of heat in their apartment.


Next month, Mr. Rodriguez will be freed from prison, where he is serving time after a 1999 guilty plea to tax evasion, larceny and credit card fraud -- charges that grew out of the investigation into the couple's disappearance. Mr. Rodriguez was to serve two to six years in prison, but correction officials confirmed yesterday that he had been granted parole and would be freed on Aug. 30.

The upcoming release has angered some law enforcement officials and opened old wounds for the families of Ms. Sylvia, an artist and real estate agent, and Mr. Sullivan, an actor and art gallery worker, who lived in a fifth-floor loft at 76 Pearl Street.

''On behalf of the family, we hope that at this point, he comes forward and tells us what he knows about their disappearance,'' said Jerry H. Goldfeder, a Manhattan lawyer who represents Ms. Sylvia's family.

Mr. Goldfeder said the lack of a resolution has been especially hard on the couple's loved ones. Even though the police presume Ms. Sylvia and Mr. Sullivan were killed, their bodies were never found.

The police searched the Hudson River. They organized helicopter flights over Mr. Rodriguez's seven-acre estate in Slate Hill, N.Y., using infrared devices to look for bodies. They sent dogs sniffing around its edges in hopes of unearthing enough evidence for a search warrant. They brought in more dogs after tearing up the floor of a locksmith shop that Mr. Rodriguez owned on the ground floor of 76 Pearl Street. Each time, they found nothing.

''They've tried to live with the terrible reality of having their loved ones missed and unaccounted for without any closure,'' Mr. Goldfeder said of the families. ''They've dealt with their grief privately.''

The release of Mr. Rodriguez, which was first reported yesterday in The Daily News, comes over the objections of Manhattan prosecutors as the investigation of the couple's disappearance continues. ''We sent a letter to the parole board saying that we oppose his release and that he should serve the maximum sentence,'' said Barbara Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Manhattan district attorney.

A Police Department investigator said detectives would reinterview witnesses, including Mr. Rodriguez's wife. She divorced him after he was arrested and sold the house they had shared in upstate New York. The homicide investigation, which has been handled by the First Precinct Detective Squad and the Manhattan South Homicide Task Force, will be turned over the Cold Case Squad.

Police Chief Mike Collins said of the investigation into the couple's disappearance: ''It does continue, it's active and it's a priority. And if anyone has information, we're still seeking it. Call the TIPS hot line.''

The names of Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Sylvia were not mentioned at Mr. Rodriguez's parole hearing at the Oneida Correctional Facility, in Oneida, N.Y., where he is incarcerated, an official transcript shows.

Of the tax evasion, credit card fraud and larceny that resulted in his prison term, Mr. Rodriguez, according to the transcript, told the parole board: ''Like I said, it's the biggest mistake I ever made in my life and I don't intend to make it again, that's for sure. I learned my lesson.''



http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricte...DA80994DF494D81

METROPOLITAN DESK


A Couple Are Missing And Friends Are Baffled


By JAMES BARRON (NYT) 871 words
Published: November 15, 1997

After six years together, they had developed their little routines.
As harried traders and pinstriped financiers headed home after a hard day on the Wall Street trading floors two blocks from their high-ceilinged loft, the couple would jog their way through the centuries-old lanes of lower Manhattan, bound for the sparkling new promenade along the Hudson River in Battery Park City.


Then they would circle back to their loft, which they had filled with watercolors they had painted -- his of objects like guitars and the moon, hers of brightly colored abstract shapes. Homebodies, they might watch a rented video like the comedy ''Addicted to Love,'' said neighbors who knew their habits.

Their friends said the pair always kept in touch, even when they went away on vacation. So when almost a week went by and no one had heard from Camden Sylvia, a 37-year-old real-estate agent, and Michael Sullivan, a 50-year-old actor and art-gallery admissions clerk, their friends became alarmed.

The police said yesterday that they had opened a missing-persons investigation for the couple, who have not been seen since they rented a video from a store near City Hall on Nov. 7. Friends said there was always the possibility that Ms. Sylvia and Mr. Sullivan had just decided to take a spur-of-the-moment vacation. Mr. Sullivan, after all, had shown a streak of whimsy and had once tried to walk across the United States, getting as far as Texas, where he joined a carnival.

But a totally reckless adventure, the friends said, seemed unlikely. Their clothes -- except their running shoes -- were in the apartment when friends who had a key looked in on Wednesday. Mr. Sullivan's wallet was lying on a table.

The police said they had not ruled out the possibility of foul play, but they said that the couple's credit cards had not been used since they vanished. An abductor would probably have gone on a spending spree in the first day or two, then ditched the cards, the police said.

Relatives and friends became concerned when they did not hear from Ms. Sylvia and Mr. Sullivan over the weekend. On Tuesday, a colleague at the real-estate agency where Ms. Sylvia works became so concerned that Ms. Sylvia had not called in for messages that she began calling neighbors, friends and Ms. Sylvia's relatives in Hyannis, Mass.

Ms. Sylvia's mother, Laurie Sylvia, an advocate for the disabled, was on a business trip and stopped in Manhattan on Thursday. After checking the loft, she went to the First Precinct station house and handed in a missing persons report.

The police put the document in their files but did not open a formal investigation until yesterday. Officials said the Police Department's policy is not to open a full-fledged inquiry unless they believe there has been foul play or the people who are said to be missing are younger than 18 or older than 65, or have a serious medical or mental condition.

Because the couple fit none of those criteria, no detective was initially assigned to the case. But after the couple's neighbors began posting makeshift fliers and calling newspapers and radio stations, the police sent investigators to the loft yesterday. The Alliance for Downtown New York, which runs a business improvement district, distributed posters to buildings in Battery Park City and along West Street.

Neighbors said that detectives led a dog through the loft, apparently hoping to familiarize it with the couple's scent. It was not clear where the police planned to have the dog try to pick up their trail.

Investigators also listened to messages on the couple's answering machine, neighbors said. Among the messages was one addressed to Mr. Sullivan, who was trained as a dancer and worked with an Off Broadway theater company, that said, ''We'd like you to come over and help us strike the set.''

Chuck Delaney, a longtime neighbor, said that Mr. Sullivan had lived in the building since 1976; Ms. Sylvia moved in soon after they met several years ago.

The well-kept apartment gave no indication that they intended to be gone for long. There were fresh flowers in a vase, and friends found one set of keys -- an indication, they said, that the couple had gone out together. On Camden Sylvia's calendar for this week was a notation about an event at Symphony Space, on the Upper West Side. Friends also said that at least one passport was found in the apartment.

''The worst possible scenario is not to know,'' Laurie Sylvia said. ''My hope is that they've been seen by someone.''






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METROPOLITAN DESK


Police Copters Scan Property Of Landlord

By JOHN KIFNER (NYT) 1219 words
Published: November 19, 1997

Police investigators looking into the mysterious disappearances of a Manhattan couple and their landlord used helicopters yesterday to search for evidence on the landlord's Orange County property after his family stopped cooperating in the case and refused to let officers conduct a search.
Trying to obtain evidence to secure a warrant to search the seven-acre property in Slate Hill, N.Y., senior police officials scoured the expanse from overhead for a ''probable cause'' -- like the green Honda Passport that the landlord, Robert Rodriguez, was last seen driving early Sunday, or freshly turned earth that might indicate a grave.


Police officials have not labeled Mr. Rodriguez, 56, a suspect in the couple's disappearance, and would not comment on the results of the search.

They said they were trying to learn why Mr. Rodriguez had vanished hours before they sought to question him about the couple, Camden Sylvia, a 37-year-old artist and real estate agent, and Michael Sullivan, a 50-year-old actor and art gallery admissions clerk.

The couple, who rented a loft in a building owned by Mr. Rodriguez at 76 Pearl Street in downtown Manhattan, were last seen on Nov. 7 renting a video from a store near City Hall.

As darkness fell yesterday over their neighborhood, Hanover Square in the financial district, the police went into the old brick five-story walkup with search dogs three times.

The tiny neighborhood, tucked under the glittering towers around Wall Street, has been abuzz for days since Ms. Sylvia's mother, Laurie Sylvia, reported the apparent disappearance of the couple.

Mrs. Sylvia, weary and worried, has been waiting in the couple's painting-filled top-floor loft since late last week. ''I don't know what to make of it,'' she said yesterday. Detectives came to talk to her last night after the helicopter search and told her, she said tiredly, that they had no progress to report.

Almost always seen together, the couple were such creatures of steady habit -- regular joggers, homebodies who rented videos and puttered with their plants and paintings -- that anything like a sudden, unannounced trip would seem out of character. Indeed, Ms. Sylvia was so punctilious, a downstairs neighbor recalled, that she not only had her water her plants, but she also labeled every pot.

After the police began to look into the matter, Mr. Rodriguez, who bought the building four years ago for a mere $205,000 and runs a locksmith business on the ground floor, disappeared as well.

The police first contacted Mr. Rodriguez on Saturday afternoon by telephone at his home, to arrange access to the Manhattan apartment building. He seemed ''very cooperative,'' said Deputy Inspector Joseph A. D'Amico of the Manhattan South detectives, when the police made a routine request for keys to the basement and other areas of the building.

But then, sometime after midnight, Mr. Rodriguez told his family that he was going to Manhattan for an interview with the police, officials said. He drove off in the Honda and has not been seen since.

In reality, it was not until some 12 hours later, on Sunday afternoon, that the police called Mr. Rodgriguez's home to request that he come in for questioning. Apparently mystified that he had not already had his meeting with the police, his family told investigators that they did not know where he was. His son, who is also named Robert and who works in his father's locksmith shop, then filed a missing-person report with the state police.

But yesterday, the family declined to cooperate with the police, refusing to let them search the property -- a two-story, cedar-sided contemporary house nestled among large oak trees, with a curving driveway and a second house used as an office.

''We have taken the position at this point in time to retrench a bit,'' said Joseph P. Marro, the family's lawyer. ''We have been cooperative with the police for two days. It is a stressful situation for the family. He left the house. So he is not there.''

Mr. Marro, who said he has represented the family for about 20 years, insisted that Mr. Rodriguez ''is not a suspect.''

''The police have said there is not a suspect,'' he added.

The lawyer dismissed as ''simply outrageous'' any implication that the disappearance of the couple could be linked to a landlord-tenant dispute.

Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Sylvia, who lived in the building for some years before Mr. Rodriguez bought it and were reportedly paying rent of only $300 a month, had been complaining that Mr. Rodriguez was slow to turn on the heat as the weather grew cold and had threatened a rent strike, other tenants said.

Mr. Marro contended that ''it was not a heated dispute.''

''We consented to the Loft Board status,'' he said. ''And the Loft Board set the rent in the building.''

When Mr. Rodriguez bought the building in 1993, other businessmen in the area recalled, the top three floors were occupied by longtime loft dwellers. Mr. Rodriguez, a Cuban-born locksmith who had worked for nearly 30 years in rented quarters in the area, split the commercial ground floor in two, for his own business and a barbershop.

Real estate values were low in the area at the time, in part because a number of firms were relocating in midtown, in larger quarters in new buildings. But recently, especially since January, there has been a sudden upsurge in property values, much of it due to the conversion of large old office buildings into luxury apartments, suggesting that the financial district may be the city's happening neighborhood.

''Ten years ago, you couldn't get a cup of coffee here on a Saturday,'' said Vincent Campanella, who runs a florist shop next door to Mr. Rodriguez's building, at the corner of Coenties Slip, where a little cluster of quaint buildings -- some of which, like Fraunces Tavern, date back to the Revolutionary era -- sits in the shadow of moneyed skyscrapers.

''Now look at it, it's like a hidden spot in New York City,'' Mr. Campanella went on, describing the changes in the past year due to residential conversions and the establishment of a business improvement district with red-jacketed street cleaners.

Mr. Campanella, who bought his morning coffee down the block at the Landmark Gourmet Deli with Mr. Rodriguez, found it difficult, as did other merchants, to believe that the landlord had anything to do with the couple's disappearance.

''Bob was a good businessman, a decent neighbor,'' said Donald Dalton, the deli owner. ''It's inconceivable to me. I refuse to believe something so heinous. He was in here every day like a clock. Somewhat health conscious -- oatmeal, an orange -- he'd ask to have it peeled.''




Photo: A police helicopter flew yesterday over the Orange County home of Robert Rodriguez, the missing landlord of a Manhattan couple who have disappeared. The police sought evidence to justify a search of the property. (Richard Harbus for The New York Times)(pg. B3)








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METROPOLITAN DESK


Search Blocked In Case of 3 Who Vanished

By JOHN KIFNER (NYT) 689 words
Published: November 20, 1997

Manhattan District Attorney Robert M. Morgenthau turned down a police request yesterday for a warrant to search the upstate property of the missing landlord of two downtown loft dwellers who disappeared almost two weeks ago. Mr. Morgenthau said there was not yet probable cause to justify the search.
''At this time, there is no legal basis for it,'' Barbara Thompson, Mr. Morgenthau's spokeswoman, said of the prosecutor's refusal to sign the application for court approval to search Robert Rodriguez's house and land in Orange County.


The police have been investigating reports from friends and relatives of the tenants -- Michael Sullivan, a 50-year old actor and art gallery clerk, and Camden Sylvia, a 37-year old artist and real estate agent -- that they had vanished. The couple shared a rent-stabilized, top-floor loft for years at 76 Pearl Street, a five-story brick building in the Wall Street area that Mr. Rodriguez has owned since 1993.

After the police called Mr. Rodriguez -- a 56-year-old Cuban-born locksmith -- over the weekend for keys to the Pearl Street building, he, too, disappeared. The police have not labeled him a suspect in the case.

Mr. Rodriguez's family, who originally cooperated with the police in the case, refused on Tuesday to voluntarily allow officials to search their property, on the advice of their lawyer, Joseph P. Marrow.

City detetectives flew over the property in Slate Hill, N.Y., in a helicopter on Tuesday to look for evidence. But investigators conceded they did not spot anything they could cite as ''probable cause'' in applying for a search warrant.

This lack of any specific idea of what a search might turn up was apparently the reason for Mr. Morgenthau's reluctance to sign the warrant application. One option for the police now would be to seek a warrant from the Orange County authorities, although this would be unusual since the crime is being investigated from New York City.

But legal experts noted that the police would need to proceed carefully to avoid weakening their case for a trial: if good evidence is turned up in the execution of a flawed search warrant, it can be thrown out of court.

While the police have not named Mr. Rodriguez as a suspect, because of the coincidence of the disappearances, known tenant-landlord tensions between him and the missing couple, and the absence of any other clues he has clearly become a focus of the investigation.

The couple and other tenants had complained to Mr. Rodriguez about a lack of heat in their lofts as the cold weather began. The police have recovered a letter in which Mr. Sullivan and Ms. Sylvia said they would withhold their $300 monthly rent until the heat was turned on. It was, tenants said, a yearly clash not uncommon among loft inhabitants.

Mr. Rodriguez, a police investigator said, was realizing about $1,500 a month from the building's four lofts, whose residents are protected under Loft Board rules drawn up two decades ago. Residential prices in the district, which is on the brink of becoming the city's next trendy neighborhood, have been skyrocketing with the conversion of old office buildings into luxury apartments.

Last night, detectives staking out the apartment building took photographs of Gina Delarosa, a second-floor tenant with whom Mr. Rodriguez had a friendship, investigators said. The police would not explain why they took the pictures. Earlier, officers, using a crowbar, had broken into a closet that Mr. Rodriguez had built in Ms. Delarosa's apartment. An investigator who spoke on condition of anonymity said that nothing suspicious was found in the closet and that it appeared to have been used for storage by Mr. Rodriguez.


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METROPOLITAN DESK


PUBLIC LIVES; Defender of the Loft Unbowed After 17 Years

By JAN HOFFMAN (NYT) 988 words
Published: July 2, 1999

AS Wednesday night dissolved into Thursday morning this week, Chuck DeLaney, recovering from a rather stressful day, sat down in his loft to a late supper of Pakistani takeout, and, more trenchantly, a generous gin martini.
Mr. DeLaney, who has rented his Pearl Street loft since 1976 without a lease and who is the lone tenants' representative on the city's nine-member Loft Board, remembered looking at the clock. It was 10 minutes past midnight. ''Oh,'' he thought, ''we're into a new adventure.''


New York State's loft law, which established the Loft Board and protects tenants like Mr. DeLaney -- who lives in the building from which a couple disappeared in 1997 on the day they argued with the landlord -- had just expired.

Mr. DeLaney slept well enough, all things considered. The law has been extended before, and when arm-wrestling budget sessions are scheduled to resume in Albany on July 12, it is likely to be extended again. (While Mr. DeLaney and other loft law experts have been besieged with anxious calls, many see a touch of the going-through-the-motions in the tenants' protests and legislators' warnings.)

Besides, in the cosmic sense, Mr. DeLaney need not worry that he will be out on the street any time soon: he is too valuable. That is because as both a tenant leader who lobbied for passage of the 1982 law, and the longest-reigning member of the Loft Board, which oversees landlord-tenant loft disputes and the efforts of buildings to comply with residential codes, Mr. DeLaney could well be the only person in the state who not only knows the history of the evolving law, but also actually understands it.

Plus, he is half of what, in New York, amounts to an awesome power couple: his wife, Sara Brenner DeLaney, is an administrative law judge who resolves parking violations.

Mr. DeLaney, 51, an impassioned fellow with a balding pate and a corkscrew ponytail, came by his involvement in the loft law in a thoroughly unsurprising manner: in 1978, when he was a struggling photographer in the Pearl Street loft, the landlord at the time, the Greek owner of a coffee shop, asked him to explain an ominous-looking letter from the city's Buildings Department.

''He says, 'What does ''evict'' mean?' '' Mr. DeLaney said yesterday, in a conversation at the garment-district loft of a painter pal, Joseph Marioni. ''I knew we were in trouble.''

Hundreds of loft owners were getting similar letters at that time as the city, which had seen SoHo catapult from an abandoned manufacturing district into an expensive, sought-after neighborhood, tried to control formerly commercial buildings that had been illegally converted into residences. Many of those lofts had been rented and fixed up by artists like Mr. DeLaney.

HE and three others organized the Lower Manhattan Loft Tenants, which, at peak agita times -- now, for instance -- has about 1,000 dues-paying members. ''You take 100 artists to Albany, and it's not like taking 100 steamfitters,'' Mr. DeLaney said. ''They go off in all directions and get into shouting matches with legislators.''

The narrowly drawn law that emerged, which seeks to bring the buildings up to safety codes and make tenants eligible for rent-stabilization leases, affected about 10,000 loft tenants and their landlords in 835 buildings, mostly in Manhattan. Mr. DeLaney has sat on the Loft Board (its members are mayoral appointees) since its inception in 1982.

Because board members get a per diem rate of $175 and the board now meets only once a month -- never mind that, with the expiration of the law, the board technically no longer exists -- it's just as well Mr. DeLaney has a day job. He is a freelance photographer and dean of the New York Institute of Photography, which has about 20,000 students who take its correspondence courses.

Mr. DeLaney, a Columbia graduate who used to teach photography to inmates and prison guards, sends audiotapes of critiques to students from all over the country. ''I have a doctor who wants to become a still-photographer on movie sets, and a veterinarian who hates animals, and a woman who was told she was too stupid to be a veterinarian who became a very successful pet photographer,'' said Mr. DeLaney, who seems to have a sense of humor about most things, except, appropriately enough, his role as a tenants' advocate.

He declined to disclose the rent for his 1,200-square-foot loft. In fact he has not paid rent since last spring, because of protracted disputes with a later landlord, Robert Rodriguez. Mr. DeLaney also said he withheld rent because Mr. Rodriguez did not explain his two-week disappearance after the fifth-floor tenants, Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan, vanished.

Mr. Rodriguez, who has not been charged in connection with the missing couple, was jailed without bail after being indicted on charges of tax and credit card fraud. He sold the building, but, Mr. DeLaney said, landlord-tenant disputes continue.

On Nov. 7, 1997, Mr. DeLaney said, his wife typed a note to Mr. Rodriguez, threatening a rent strike if he did not supply heat. ''I signed it and went to work. I passed Camden on the way out,'' he said. ''Michael was upstairs getting dressed. Camden said, 'I'm going down there, I'll give it to him' '' -- the landlord -- ''and that was the last I ever saw of them.''



Photo: Chuck DeLaney has been representing tenants on the Loft Board since 1982. (Ruby Washington/The New York Times)


http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...751C0A9679C8B63
New Clues in Case Of Missing Couple


Published: February 17, 2001
New clues have developed in the 1997 disappearance of a Manhattan couple whose landlord has come under scrutiny in the case.

New York police detectives are investigating a body of water where they believe the bodies of Camden Sylvia, 36, and Michael Sullivan, 54, were left, according to a report yesterday by WNBC-TV. The location of the suspected disposal site was not given.

Since the couple's disappearance on Nov. 7, 1997, their former landlord, Robert Rodriguez, of Orange County, has been under scrutiny by law enforcement agencies.

The couple reportedly were involved in a rent dispute with Mr. Rodriguez, the owner of the couple's apartment building in Lower Manhattan. They were last seen arguing with him.

While looking into the disappearance, investigators uncovered a scheme by which Mr. Rodriguez used money laundering, credit card fraud and tax evasion to hide more than $1 million in income. He began serving a prison sentence last year.



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METROPOLITAN DESK


Police Search of Building Where Missing Couple Lived Is Fruitless

By ANDY NEWMAN (NYT) 298 words
Published: February 11, 1999

Homicide investigators accompanied by a corpse-sniffing dog tore up the floor of a closed hardware store in the financial district yesterday in a fruitless search for clues in the 1997 disappearance of a couple who had lived in the building and had feuded with the landlord, the police said.
The landlord, Robert Rodriguez, who also owned the hardware store, sold the building at 76 Pearl Street last week, and the new owners gave permission for the search, their lawyer said.


The police were looking for the remains of Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia, who were last seen on Nov. 7, 1997, after arguing with Mr. Rodriguez about a lack of heat in their $300-a-month rent-stabilized loft. The police searched parts of the building shortly after the disappearance, but Mr. Rodriguez has been largely uncooperative with the investigation. He has been in jail since Jan. 5 after being charged with money laundering.

Det. Joseph Pentangelo said the search turned up nothing. ''They went in with a cadaver dog, the dog sniffed around, negative results,'' Detective Pentangelo said.

The building, a five-story brick walkup that was owned by a corporation, 76 Pearl Street Corp., of which Mr. Rodriguez is one of several shareholders, was sold last Thursday to a company called Pearl Street Holding LLC, said Jack E. Lepper, the new owners' lawyer. Mr. Lepper refused to say who the principals of Pearl Street Holding were or how much they had paid.

One of Mr. Rodriguez's lawyers, Michael Rosen, said that he was not sure why the building had been sold.

While in jail on the money-laundering charges, Mr. Rodriguez was arraigned last week on 14 counts of tax evasion.



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4 Years Later, No Signs Of Pair's Whereabouts


On Nov. 7, it was four years since a Lower Manhattan couple, Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan, were last seen. The police said they vanished on a day when they had argued with their landlord over a lack of heat and had threatened to withhold the $300-a-month rent for their loft at 76 Pearl Street.

The landlord, Robert Rodriguez, then disappeared himself for two weeks, and became the focus of a widely publicized investigation into the fate of Ms. Sylvia, an artist and real estate agent, and Mr. Sullivan, an actor and art gallery employee. But the police turned up no evidence linking Mr. Rodriguez to their disappearance and he denied involvement.

The inquiry did lead to unrelated fraud and tax-evasion charges, guilty pleas and sentences for Mr. Rodriguez of two to six years in state prison and 23 months in federal prison.

But in the disappearances, the police last week gave no indication that a break was near. ''The case is still under investigation'' was all that a spokesman, Detective Eugene Canapi, would say.


Camden Anne Sylvia


Above Images: Sylvia, circa 1997


Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance

Missing Since: November 7, 1997 from New York City, New York
Classification: Endangered Missing
Date Of Birth: July 28, 1961
Age: 36 years old
Height and Weight: 5'4 - 5'7, 125 pounds
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Black hair, brown eyes. Sylvia wears eyeglasses with dark-colored frames. Her nickname is Camie.
Clothing/Jewelry Description: Possibly a black jacket with a brightly-colored stripe on the front.


Details of Disappearance

Sylvia and her boyfriend, Michael Sullivan, were last seen jogging during the evening hours of November 7, 1997 in the New York City borough of Manhattan. Sylvia and Sullivan were in the vicinity of Pearl Street and Hanover Square at the time of their disappearances. Neither of them have been heard from again.
Sylvia's mother inspected the couple's loft after she failed to locate them shortly afterwards. Everything was in place inside of their residence. Sullivan's wallet, keys, both their passports, and a rental video were on their kitchen table. Two pairs of running shoes and one set of house keys were missing, as was the bag Sylvia carried when she took work home from the office. At first it was thought the couple had taken an impromptu vacation, but their apartment appeared as if Sylvia and Sullivan intended to return home within a short time, and their credit cards have not been used since their disappearances.

The couple had been having problems with their landlord, Robert "Bob" Rodriguez, who owned their apartment building at 76 Pearl Street in Manhattan. Photos of Rodriguez and the residence are posted below this case summary. Authorities believe that Rodriguez was having financial problems and wanted to increase the rent for all of his tenants in his property in late 1997. Sylvia and Sullivan paid only $300 a month for their rent-controlled apartment; it would later command ten times that amount.

Rodriguez apparently threatened to turn off the heat if the renters did not agree to an increase. Sylvia presented Rodriguez with a petition signed by tenants at 76 Pearl Street on the day of their disappearances. The petition stated that the tenants would withhold their rent payments if Rodriguez followed through with his threat.

Investigators theorized that Rodriguez believed he could receive his desired rental payments from other prospective clients and murdered Sylvia and Sullivan on November 7. There is no evidence to support this hypothesis, but authorities also believed Rodriguez may have dumped the couple's remains in a body of water in the New York City area afterwards. Extensive searches failed to produce any evidence of the couple's whereabouts. Rodriguez disappeared for two weeks afterwards without explanation. He returned to Manhattan by the end of November 1997, hired a lawyer, and refused to cooperate with law enforcement investigating Sullivan and Sylvia's disappearances.

Sylvia's mother maintained the rent for the couple's apartment from the time of their disappearances. Rodriguez was arrested on unrelated larceny, tax fraud and credit card fraud charges later in 1997. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to six years in prison. 76 Pearl Street was sold to another landlord, who promptly raised the rent and forced Sylvia's mother to give up the loft.

David King was an associate of Rodriguez and was a co-defendant in a lawsuit with the landlord in 1991. He disappeared from New York City during that year around the time he and Rodriguez had an argument. King has never been located, but it is believed he met with foul play. It is not known if Rodriguez is involved in Sylvia, Sullivan or King's disappearances. There have not been any arrests in connection with the cases, which remain unsolved.

Rodriguez was scheduled to be released from prison in the fall of 2002, but the New York State Parole Board reversed its decision in October of that year. The Board stated that Rodriguez was "evasive" about the whereabouts of a gun cache that disappeared from his property in the late 1990s. The Board labeled Rodriguez "intentionally deceitful" and he was returned to prison for an additional two years. He has since been released and maintains his innocence in Sylvia and Sullivan's disappearances.

Sylvia was employed at a Manhattan real estate office for 14 years at the time of her 1997 disappearance. She also worked as a painter. She is a native of the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts. Investigators searched the Hudson River for the couple's bodies, but turned up no evidence. Their cases remain unsolved.



Left: Rodriguez, circa 1998; Right: 76 Pearl Street


Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
New York City Police Department
646-610-6914



Source Information
New York City Police Department
The New York Daily News
The Village Voice
The National Center for Missing Adults
WHDH-TV Boston
New York Missing Persons
The New York Times



Updated 2 times since October 12, 2004.

Last updated May 25, 2006; details of disappearance updated.

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Chain of events
Female body still nameless
Police doubt it?s Camden Sylvia;search goes onCHRIS RAMIREZ/The Record
A rubber glove lies on the site where New Jersey State Police pulled the dead body of a woman from Columbia Lake in Warren County Wednesday. Police are trying to determine if it is the body of Camden Sylvia.

Photo provided/The Record Police still do not know the whereabouts of Camden Sylvia and Michael Sullivan


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KNOWLTON, N.J. -- Authorities were trying to determine yesterday whether a female body found floating in a lake is Camden Sylvia, who disap- peared with her boyfriend Nov. 7.
A New York City police spokesman said the body does not appear to be Sylvia. ?It?s preliminary, but we don?t believe it is one of the persons we?re looking for,?? Officer Arek Tarih told The New York Times.
A Knowlton man out duck hunting with his son discovered the body floating in Columbia Lake in a rural area 60 miles west of Manhattan about 3 p.m. Wednesday. Police searched the lake Wednesday and yesterday morning before the calling off the search for the day around 11 a.m. The corpse was missing its head and hands. The search will resume today.
The Warren County Medical Examiner?s office did a preliminary autopsy on the body, but a positive identification had not been made last night. Police have told Sylvia?s friends that the corpse had elaborately painted toe- nails.
?I don?t think that?s Camden,?? said Sara DeLaney, a friend who lives in Sylvia?s apartment building at 76 Pearl St. in Manhattan. ?I know Camden, and she wasn?t like a pedicure-type of person. She was an artist.??
Sylvia, 36, and her boyfriend, Michael Sullivan, 54, were last seen Nov. 7 near their apartment. The owner of the building, Robert Rodriguez, 56, of New Hampton, disappeared after agreeing to meet police Nov. 15 at his locksmith shop on the ground floor of the building.
Rodriguez?s lawyer, Joseph Marro, said this week that Rodriguez is alive and well at an undisclosed location. Marro has said repeatedly that Rodriguez has nothing to do with the disappearance of his tenants, but Rodriguez has not spoken to police. No one was home at Rodriguez?s Carter Road home on Thanksgiving.
The Caucasian body was found by Douglas Roscoe of Knowlton.
Roscoe, who was hunting ducks, told The Star-Ledger of Newark that he thought it was an animal carcass, until he lifted it with a stick and saw a strap from a bra or slip.
He told the newspaper that vegetation was growing on the body and it ?clearly wasn?t freshly dumped.?? Authorities said the body was partially clothed.
The mystery that has already spread from New York City to Orange County has now hit this rural town of 2,900 people in Warren County, N.J, right off Interstate 80. And residents aren?t surprised.
They said the hunting and fishing grounds of Knowlton, about 50 miles from Middletown, N.Y., have been a regular dumping ground for unidentified bodies for years.
?Things like this happen a lot,?? said Rachael Milani of Knowlton, who came to the lake out of curiosity yesterday. ?It?s not surprising. There are a lot of weird things going on in this town.??
In October 1991, hunters found an unidentified female corpse -- dubbed the ?Tiger Lady?? for the tiger tattoo on her leg -- less than a mile from where the body was discovered Wednesday. At least two other murder victims were found dumped off Interstate 80 in Warren County in recent years.
Neighbors said it was the first body to be found in Columbia Lake, as far as they knew. The lake is so close to Route 80 that you can hear the traffic.
Neighbors said hunters and fishermen are a common sight on the dirt road that runs along Columbia Lake. ?Cars go in there at all hours of the night,?? said Laura Rafferty, who has lived at the entrance to the dirt road for 47 years. ?After 47 years, you get used to it.??
Rafferty said her daughter was driving her home Wednesday afternoon from the hair salon when they followed a state trooper right to their driveway. ?I was shocked,?? she said.
Another neighbor, Rene Giacono, bicycled down the dirt road yesterday with her daughter, Alina, 12, after authorities had ended the search for the day. Giacono said she brought her daughter home from her horseback riding lesson Wednesday night when she saw flares and state troopers at the entrance to the dirt road.
?We get a lot of city people that come down this road to fish, but there are a lot of shady characters who come down this road,?? Giacono said. ?I told my kids not to come down this road alone.??
New York City police didn?t expect to get autopsy results until today. The Manhattan district attorney?s office was not aware that a body had been found in the lake, spokeswoman Barbara Thompson said.
The lake was quiet yesterday afternoon. Only a few latex gloves, left behind by authorities, littered the shore- line.
Meanwhile, in New York City and Massachusetts, the missing couple?s friends and relatives hoped and waited. Vigils will be held at 5 p.m. today at 76 Pearl St. and at the Hyannis, Mass., home of Sylvia?s mother, Laurie. The investigation is continuing.
This story was reported by David Kibbe, Josh Margolin and Heather Yakin. It was written by Kibbe.

Chain of events
Nov. 7 Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia are last seen near the Manhattan loft they rent from Robert Rodriguez of New Hampton.
Nov. 15 (evening) New York police ask Rodriguez for keys to the Manhattan building. He leaves Orange County for the city.
Nov. 15-16 (overnight) New York police call Rodriguez?s home to call him in for questioning. Detectives learn he has left. Unbenknownst to the cops, Rodriguez parks his Honda at a lot on West 22nd Street in Man- hattan.
Nov. 16 (9:15 p.m.) Rodriguez?s son reports his father missing.
Nov. 17 The Rodriguezes refuse to cooperate with police.
Nov. 18 Investigators circle the grounds of Rodriguez?s New Hampton home with an infrared-equipped heli- copter.
Nov. 19 City police continue searching the Manhattan building. They are denied a search warrant for the New Hampton property.
Nov. 20 State Police check the New Hampton property, without a warrant, after a report that Rodriguez was seen in the area.
Nov. 21 In New Hampton, State and city police begin checking neighbors? land with a dog.
Nov. 22 IRS records show that Rodriguez owes nearly $10,000 in federal tax and interest and almost $30,000 in state sales and withholding taxes. Rodriguez?s car found at the parking lot and seized by cops.
Nov. 23 Records reveal that Rodriguez owes $27,000 in back taxes to New York City.
Nov. 24 Authorities confirm that Rodriguez?s 1994 Honda Passport was found. City police reopen probe into case of David King, a former Rodriguez employee who went missing in 1991. Rodriguez?s representatives start negotiating with the Manhattan DA for the landlord to come in to answer questions.
Nov. 25 Talks regarding Rodriguez?s surrender continue. His lawyer tells police they cannot search the car. Records reveal more than $40,000 in additional tax liens, plus other debts and failed businesses.
Nov. 26 Rodriguez?s lawyer says he knows where Rodriguez is and that the formerly missing landlord- locksmith will talk to prosecutors only if they have a warrant. A woman?s headless, handless body is found in a lake in Knowlton, N.J. There is speculation that it could be Camden Sylvia. New Jersey State Police notify New York City police about the discovery.
Nov. 27 Authorities await the autopsy results on the body found in New Jersey. Police halt the search for the day at noon, planning to resume in the morning.



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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/nyregion...ef=camdensylvia
Missing Couple’s Legacy: Shards of HopeBy MICHAEL WILSON
Published: May 28, 2012


In 1979, Laurie Sylvia’s daughter, Camden, was graduating from high school, a summer — an entire future — ahead of her. Her mother looked at the smiling boy’s face on the milk carton and thanked the heavens that her daughter was not a vulnerable 6-year-old anymore. She was safe.

Michael Nagle for The New York Times
Michael Sullivan and Camden Sylvia lived in a loft at 76 Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan. They argued with their landlord before they disappeared.
Thirty-three years later, with the boy’s face back in the news with an arrest in his case, Ms. Sylvia is reminded how wrong she was.

Camden Sylvia grew up and left her mother’s home in Hyannis Port, Mass., to move to New York City. She worked at a real estate office and lived with her boyfriend, Michael Sullivan, in a $300-a-month rent-stabilized loft at 76 Pearl Street near Manhattan’s lower tip. He was an actor who worked at an art gallery.

The couple argued with their landlord, Robert Rodriguez, about the lack of heat. It was an unusually cold November in 1997. They threatened to hold a rent strike.

The couple went out for a run one night, Nov. 7. And like Etan Patz that morning in SoHo, they disappeared.

After several days, Ms. Sylvia arrived at her daughter’s apartment, but she had no key; a neighbor let her in. They found wallets and passports in the loft, and a movie one of them had just rented, “Addicted to Love.” But no running shoes, and just one set of keys.

“She wouldn’t rent a movie and then just leave,” her mother said a few days later. “She’s a very predictable, conscientious person. For her to just leave without telling anyone is totally out of character.”

Ms. Sylvia called the police. Investigators called Mr. Rodriguez, the landlord, who was cooperative over the telephone from his home in Orange County, N.Y., but as the days dragged on, he himself disappeared. His family refused to allow officers onto his property, so the police searched with helicopters. They found nothing.

The landlord sold the building, and the police hurried inside with cadaver-sniffing dogs, tearing up the floor but finding nothing. Mr. Rodriguez was later arrested on tax fraud charges and pleaded guilty to larceny after admitting he had used a dead man’s identity to commit fraud. He served nearly six years in prison and was paroled in 2004.

There would be grim discoveries, the familiar mile-markers of missing-persons cases. A severed foot was found in the Hudson River; the police searched, finding nothing more. Ms. Sylvia gave blood in hopes of a DNA match to the foot, but none came.

No one was ever charged in the couple’s disappearance.

Ms. Sylvia is 70 now, and was cheerful on Monday when a reporter’s call interrupted her window-washing chores. She now lives in Centerville, Mass.

“I think about this every day, of course,” she said. “Every time anybody disappears, I go, ‘Oh, one more person.’ ”

She followed the news when the Patz case re-emerged last month, as federal agents dug up a cellar floor. “When they were digging down there, I was like, ‘Oh, I wonder if they’ll ever find anything.’ ”

She saw an outcome that she was very familiar with: nothing.

But the arrest last week of Pedro Hernandez, who the police said confessed to killing Etan, gave her hope, particularly because of the manner in which he came to their attention: a tipster had called the authorities.

“Other people must know something about Camden and Michael,” she said.” I hope somehow they’ll find some sort of evidence. I think somebody could speak. How do you get rid of two people?”

She has not spoken to the police, who have always said the case remained open, in a long time. “This is what they usually say: ‘We’re working on it, and we’ve got boxes of evidence, we’re looking at it,’ ” she said.

“The other side of the coin is, do you really want to know what someone did to your loved ones?” she said. “To hear the gruesome details might not be something you want to do.”

The apartment building on Pearl Street looks about the same, just as Etan’s building does, not very far away.

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