An owner of CBZ Management, which has been in the spotlight in the wake of a Venezuelan gang’s alleged takeover of several of the company’s Colorado apartment properties, faces seven warrants for his arrest after failing to appear in court last week.

Zev Baumgarten faces Aurora municipal code violations for various issues related to — the city alleged — the company’s failure to maintain its properties.

Baumgarten was ordered to be in Aurora Municipal Court on Thursday for a status and motions hearing for the seven criminal code violation cases the city filed against him in April.

He failed to appear, city spokesperson Joe Rubino said, resulting in seven bench warrants issued for him.

The Denver Gazette has filed a records request to obtain the warrants, but had not heard back as of Monday afternoon.

The management company is tied to New York-based Shmaryahu Baumgarten and purportedly Zev Baumgarten, who once owned multiple properties in the metro area — three in Denver and four in Aurora — some of which the city shuttered, citing recurring code violations.

Baumgarten was due in Aurora Municipal Court in April, but did not appear. His attorney told Municipal Judge Brian Whitney at the time that Baumgarten had moved out of state to “an undisclosed location.”

With Baumgarten’s absence, the judge scheduled the pretrial hearing for June — at which he also failed to appear.

In the past year, Aurora officials have shut down two apartment complexes operated by CBZ Management. They became the focal point in the national debate on illegal immigration after reports linked Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to criminal activities in Colorado.

TdA has a growing presence across Latin America and the U.S. Authorities have said the gang’s members are involved in a myriad of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, kidnapping, money laundering, extortion, and human trafficking — specifically targeting immigrant women and girls.

Gang members appear to have infiltrated the U.S. by embedding themselves with Venezuelans fleeing President Nicolás Maduro’s oppressive regime. About 8 million Venezuelans have fled the country with more than 500,000 estimated to be living in the U.S.

Last August, Aurora officials shuttered Aspen Grove, a 99-unit complex, leaving about 300 people, mostly immigrants, homeless.

Officials in February shuttered The Edge at Lowry and held a high-profile news conference with Aurora Police Department Chief Todd Chamberlain in a cockroach-infested apartment.

The city sought to close the six buildings on the property that house 72 units. The police said TdA gang members kidnapped and tortured a couple on the property in December.

Chamberlain asserted that, without closing the properties, the “criminal behavior will flourish, making living conditions untenable for any law-abiding residents in this neighborhood.”

City officials have alleged the properties were so neglected as to be uninhabitable. Chamberlain has described the living conditions as inhumane.

Aurora city officials filed a criminal nuisance case against Baumgarten in December.

Baumgarten fired back in court documents in April, claiming the city unfairly targeted him because he is an Orthodox Jew and accusing the officials of enforcing the rules selectively.

Aurora officials have maintained that their actions resulted from numerous health and safety violations at the complexes. A spokesperson denied the allegation that the man’s religion played a role in the city’s actions.

“As you know, the city has compiled extensive documentation over the last several years to validate the numerous problems at the properties connected to CBZ Management and its principals, including Mr. Baumgarten,” Ryan Luby, a city spokesperson, said in an emailed statement. “We have shared those records publicly.”

Before its closure, Aurora officials reached an agreement with Baumgarten to drop all the charges against him in exchange for selling the property and assuming $60,000 of the costs to board up and secure the building, emails obtained under the Colorado Open Records Act showed.

“Though the Properties’ owners fulfilled all their obligations, the City reneged,” Baumgarten said in court documents.

As an example of the alleged behavior targeting him, Baumgarten cited a phone call with the supervisor of Aurora code enforcement officers in late 2022. He asked the supervisor why the city “was being so hard on him” — to which the official “retorted ‘because you are an Orthodox Jew.’”

Baumgarten called the alleged episode an “alarming and disturbing statement.”

A Brooklyn-based company, CBZ Management owns 11 properties in Colorado, including the two where the TdA gang operated: The Aspen Grove Apartments on Nome Street (under the company Nome Partners LLC) and The Edge at Lowry on Dallas Street (Five Dallas Partners LLC).

Baumgarten’s attorneys have not replied to The Denver Gazette’s request for comment.