(credit: Rob Rhinehart)

The City of Los Angeles filed criminal charges Friday against Soylent CEO Rob Rhinehart, who owns a property on a hillside known as “Flat Top,” east of downtown LA. The company makes a product of the same name that consists of a “food substitute.” (In 2013, Ars editor Lee Hutchinson ate and drank nothing but Soylent for five days.)

According to a statement released by City Attorney Mike Feuer, Rhinehart has been “allegedly performing unpermitted work and refusing to remove a vandalized and abandoned cargo container from a Montecito Heights hillside.”

The Los Angeles Times reported that Rhinehart bought the property last year and put a shipping container on it in the name of “experimental living.” Since then, the site has attracted graffiti and trash.