A violent ex-con squatting in a swanky West Village building has allegedly spent months terrorizing his neighbors \u2014 who say he has turned his apartment into a \u201cflophouse\u201d and regularly threatens to kill them.<\/p>\n
Tenants and the landlord say Melvin DeJesus weaseled his way into an elderly man\u2019s rent-controlled apartment in the desirable location, at 400 Bleecker St., last summer, and then never left when the man died later that year. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he\u2019s going to kill the tenants and he\u2019s ready to die,\u201d said one neighbor in the building, where a two-bedroom unit recently rented for $6,700 a month. <\/p>\n
The tenant was too scared of DeJesus \u2014 who has a terrifying rap sheet, including a 1987 attempted murder charge in the Bronx \u2014 would come after them and requested to remain anonymous. <\/p>\n
Tenants and a landlord\u2019s lawsuit say violent ex-con Melvin DeJesus is squatting in a rent-controlled apartment and terrorizing residents.. William Farrington for NY Post<\/p>\n
The owner of the building, The Brodsky Organization, is now suing the ex-con for $5.5 million,\u00a0in addition to an ongoing eviction proceeding that could take months to resolve.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
In one hours-long screed last week, DeJesus screamed, \u201cYou started a war and I\u2019m going to finish it!\u201d when residents discovered a five-gallon tank of gasoline outside his door and called the cops, according to the lawsuit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m going to throw your ass off the motherf\u2014ing roof,\u201d the neighbor from hell screamed, the suit claims.<\/p>\n
But DeJesus claims the enviable West Village pad is rightfully his, because the now-deceased longtime tenant was actually his gay lover of 30 years.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says he\u2019s going to kill the tenants and he\u2019s ready to die,\u201d said one neighbor at 400 Bleeker St. \u2014 where a two-bedroom unit recently rented for $6,700 a month. William Farrington for NY Post<\/p>\n
\u201cThe landlord is knowingly lying about my status in this rent-controlled apartment despite my 31-year history with my spouse\/domestic partner,\u201d DeJesus wrote in a reply to the eviction proceeding<\/a>, adding that his mail has been delivered there \u201cfor over 30 years.\u201d<\/p>\n DeJesus did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s threatened that he has knives and weapons,\u201d said another terrified tenant. \u201cI pray to god he doesn\u2019t actually.\u201d<\/p>\n The ex-con took a plea deal in the attempted murder charge and was sentenced to 2-4 years in prison for assault. But his disturbing rap sheet doesn\u2019t end there. <\/p>\n Residents discovered a five-gallon tank of gasoline outside of his door earlier this month, and called the cops.\u00a0 New York County Clerk<\/p>\n DeJesus was found guilty at trial of drug dealing in 1993, where he was handed a sentence of up to 10 years, according to the Bronx District Attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely floored that this is the new normal,\u201d another tenant told The Post. \u201cHe\u2019s a terrorizer,\u201d the resident added. \u201cA violent, violent criminal.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cnightly disturbances\u201d began last summer, the lawsuit claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n On June 26, cops responded to a 911 call, where DeJesus allegedly screamed that \u201che had a knife and was ready to use it\u201d during a \u201cprolonged confrontation\u201d in the stairwell for nearly an hour.<\/p>\n Police confirmed to The Post that two people were taken to the hospital by EMS during the distress call, one with a minor arm injury.<\/p>\n Tenants have called the cops many other times on their nutty neighbor, but despite police showing up again and again, nothing ever happens.<\/p>\n The gas can was gone when The Post visited on Thursday. NY Post\/Georgett Roberts<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes he\u2019ll tone it when [cops] are here. When they leave, he starts up again, \u2018I dare you to call them again,\u2019\u201d said a resident. \u201cHe knows where the line is to not get arrested.\u201d<\/p>\n Another said that the cops were at the building multiple times Wednesday night, but were unable to do anything, \u201cbecause it wasn\u2019t an immediate threat,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n Cops confirmed they came by twice that night, but since they didn\u2019t personally witness the alleged harassment, there was nothing they could do, sources said.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t feel comfortable here,\u201d another tenant griped. \u201cI don\u2019t want to get killed.\u201d<\/p>\n DeJesus allegedly shacked up with the longtime rent-controlled tenant at apartment 5B, octogenarian John Grafenecker, neighbors said. Grafenecker lived in the apartment from 1974 until he died in October.<\/p>\n The owner of the building only discovered Grafenecker had died when they tried to take him to court over two months of missed rent \u2014 and instead of the 84-year-old, DeJesus was there and announced his alleged roommate was dead, the suit claims.\u00a0 <\/p>\n Grafenecker \u201crepeatedly denied\u201d that DeJesus lived in his apartment, according to court papers.<\/p>\n Tenants were unsure how the odd couple knew each other, and despite sometimes seeing DeJesus carry groceries for the senior citizen, the two constantly fought and argued \u2014 loudly.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m going to throw your ass off the motherf\u2014ing roof,\u201d DeJesus screamed, the suit claims. William Farrington for NY Post<\/p>\n \u201cThe stairwell reeked of gasoline,\u201d said a tenant, who saw the fire department demand he remove the tanks.\u00a0 New York County Clerk<\/p>\n \u201cOnce he got into a scuffle with the old man,\u201d a tenant recalled. \u201cHe said, \u2018I\u2019m going to throw you down the stairwell.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n DeJesus has since allegedly turned apartment 5B into a \u201cflophouse\u201d filled with mattresses and garbage, the suit claims, with a \u201cscary group of people\u201d coming in and out, said one tenant.<\/p>\n Several of DeJesus\u2019 \u201cguests\u201d were hauled away in an ambulance when cops were called for a wellness check in January, according to the suit.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Brodsky Organization \u2014 one of the developers turning the Flatiron Building into condos<\/a> and previously accused of being a slumlord<\/a> \u2014 did not reply for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAfter the death threats, I\u2019m thinking of moving,\u201d a tenant said. \u201cNo one wants to deal with this.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A violent ex-con squatting in a swanky West Village building has allegedly spent months terrorizing his neighbors \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[53965,4327,57,9,56,63,65,64,7978,58,2380],"class_list":["post-147929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-landlord-tenant-dispute","tag-manhattan-supreme-court","tag-metro","tag-new-york","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-tenants","tag-us-news","tag-west-village"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}