An NYPD officer was caught living in a Bedford-Stuyvesant home she’d stolen after the rightful owners tried to sell it, authorities alleged Monday.
NYPD officer Blanche O’Neal was released without bail Monday after being arraigned on charges including grand larceny and perjury, Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson and Sheriff Joseph Fucito said.
“This defendant allegedly stole a house from its rightful owner with the stroke of a pen, apparently hoping no one would notice,” Thompson said in a statement. “That she is a veteran NYPD officer makes this alleged crime all the more disturbing.”
The NYPD had no comment but said O’Neal had been with the department since 2003 and had been assigned to the 83rd Precinct in Bushwick.
Her attorney did not answer his phone. A message requesting comment on a phone number listed for O’Neal was not immediately returned.
O’Neal contacted the Sheriff’s Department, which is responsible for investigating deed fraud, in April 2015 alleging someone was trying to transfer the property without her permission, authorities said.
O’Neal, 45, claimed she had purchased the Bedford-Stuyvesant home for $10,000 from the deceased owner’s sole heir in 2012, authorities said. However, the deceased owner, Lillian Hudson, who passed in 1993, had left the property to four heirs. The title to the property was worth more than $50,000, according to the criminal complaint.
When the four heirs decided to sell the property in 2014, they discovered that a deed was registered in O’Neal’s name, according to the complaint. However, the heirs had never agreed to or even entered into any negotiations with O’Neal to sell the property to her, authorities said.
