A convicted pedophile, Peter Fonseca, who also faces an attempted murder charge, can now add “illegal landlord” to his list of crimes, according to a pair of frustrated Brooklyn building investors who say the felon took over their properties and allowed squatters to live there.
Mohammed Choudhary, 70, and Boysin Lorick, 75, bought three properties in May 2019 – 3506, 3508, and 3514 Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn, NY for $1.3 million. Their goal was to use these houses as investments. But with the 2020 COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, they say they were not able to go to check on the buildings.
Image source: J.C.Rice/nypost
In September 2020, when they were finally able to visit, they were shocked to see people living in their properties. These people claimed that 45-year-old Peter Fonseca was their landlord.
“You don’t belong here. These buildings now belong to us,” Fonseca and his “tenants” told the real owners.
According to Choudhary and Lorick, aside from this threat, they were also assaulted.
In 2019, Fonseca had been living in the garage behind 3508 Neptune Avenue. According to the owners, they tried to make him leave, but he did not agree to do so. He only left the property when he was arrested for sexually abusing a minor. After this, Chaudhary and Lorick were able to securely lock the houses, but when they returned in September 2020, they found the squatters living there.
When the owners reported the incident to the police, the cops refused to deal with the issue and told them to go to civil court. Meanwhile, the Buildings Department was fining the owners for neglect, illegal occupancy and other violations amounting to $37,000, which could possibly go up to $370,000.
Finally, in November, a Brooklyn Housing Court judge took the owners’ sides and declared that Fonseca and the squatters should be evicted. The owners are also suing the City in Brooklyn Supreme Court to get the violations erased, and asking for a court order to have the New York City Police Department or Department of Building employees go with them while they secure their properties.
Sexual assault, car theft, assault, attempted robbery, attempted murder, and now being an illegal landlord, Fonseca’s list has indeed gotten long. One thing’s for sure – he will never make it to Santa’s good boy list this year, and probably in the years to come.