NEW YORK, NY September 01, 2009 —State Senate Democratic majority leader Pedro Espada has fired his newly-hired chief of staff, after learning that he was a slumlord. In a statement, Espada says he was "shocked and blindsided" by revelations in the New York Times that Onix Sosa managed about 35 buildings in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx that had nearly 7,400 unresolved housing code violations. Of those violations, 1100 were considered immediately hazardous. Sosa has also been named in more than 100 court cases in which tenants are trying to force him to make repairs. Espada is already in hot water with tenant advocacy groups because of his failure to support a bill that would have expanded rent regulations.