Ex-auditor gets breast deal ever
A TERRIFIED Staten Island family cowered for hours at home after their predator patriarch, jailed for molesting two relatives, ages 6 and 7, was mistakenly sprung from Rikers Island.
Oft-arrested James Alvarez, 53, spent 18 hours as a free man after the monumental mixup put him back on the streets instead of back in his cell following a Monday pretrial hearing in Staten Island, sources said.
He was accused of forcing the younger child into oral and anal sex and the older child into anal sex before his May arrest, and a relative said he threatened both kids to keep their mouths shut about the alleged sex assaults that occurred in early 2016.
“We were scared,” the accused pedophile’s daughter told the Daily News about his accidental release. “The victims were my daughter and my sister. What if he decides to return?”
Male relatives of the victims rushed to the family’s Staten Island home to protect the girls after learning that Alvarez was on the loose. Authorities alleged the sex crimes occurred inside the house, where pictures of the victims are displayed in the living room.
“He’s a monster,” said Alvarez’s wife, who is in the midst of divorcing the accused child molester. “I want him to rot in jail.”
Alvarez was rearrested on Staten Island about 18 hours after he was inexplicably turned loose, with the Department of Correction promising suspensions for the personnel involved in the mess. The defendant, prior to his latest legal woes, lived with three generations of his family in a home near the borough courthouse.
“I was very angry that they let him go,” the daughter told The News. “Everybody said it was a mistake, but we didn’t know if he wanted to come here . . . I’m happy they got him. I hope he spends a lot of time in jail, so he doesn’t hurt other children.”
Alvarez — jailed on $150,000 bail — was returned to Rikers without incident after the Monday hearing. He’s facing 10 felony counts of criminal sexual act, sexual abuse, forcible touching and endangering the welfare of a child for abusing the girls between January and June 2016, according to court papers.
But the suspect was bizarrely released about 11:55 p.m. Monday, according to a jails spokesman, and left Rikers Island — presumably on a bus provided by the Department of Correction. Alvarez, in a jailhouse interview with The News, recalled hugging the officer who announced his time in lockup was improbably slashed to time served.
Alvarez made his way to the Staten Island Ferry, and then found his way to his brother’s house.
“I took a long shower,” he said. “I slept the whole day, and then I ate a T-bone steak . . . I was thinking of getting my life back on track.”
The good times stopped rolling quickly around 8 p.m. Tuesday, when members of the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force placed him in handcuffs and leg irons.
Alvarez’s wife, sitting in the living room of the house turned crime scene, described the alleged perv as a charming man who wooed her with flowers and gifts after they met five years ago at a laundromat.
“I never suspected anything,” the woman said of her soon-to-be ex-spouse. “He threatened them so they wouldn’t say anything. I went to the police right away.”
The suspect has 11 previous arrests, including a grand larceny bust in July for stealing more than $11,500 in state unemployment benefits while holding down a job, sources said. He was arrested on the sex charges two months earlier, authorities said.
The father of three denied the sexual abuse allegations — and threatened to sue the Department of Correction over his release and arrest. A FORMER city tax auditor dodged up to 15 years in prison by agreeing to fork over more than $138,000 she stole from the government and spent on breast implants and trips to Miami.
Kasara Wilson, 30, admitted in September to abusing her position with the city Sheriff’s Office, a division of the Department of Finance, that maintains trust accounts for each of the city’s five boroughs.
She agreed to make monthly payments of $1,500 toward $138,654 in restitution.
The trust accounts held funds that the Sheriff’s Office holds in escrow for distribution after legal disputes are resolved, prosecutors said.
Wilson was sentenced to three years of probation on Wednesday in exchange for pleading guilty to second-degree grand larceny.
From July 2013 to June 2016, Wilson (photo) deposited checks totalling $243,000 into her personal accounts to spend on the breast implants, the trips and shopping sprees at Raymour & Flanigan and Christian Louboutin.
As part of her job, Wilson had access to the trust accounts, and the authority to distribute funds to appropriate parties. She quit her job after initially being suspended.