CON JUAN
Bogus fed used badge to woo gals
He has a badge, a uniform and a gun and is looking for love — but Joseph Figueroa is an imposter. The Manhattan bodega worker with a long rap sheet was busted for posing as a federal agent to win over women.
In the game of love, there’s desperate, there’s really desperate — and then there’s “federal agent” Joseph Figueroa.
The Inwood man’s idea of dressing for a date involved strapping a gun to his waist, studding his shirt with an array of badges and pins and ironing a USflag patch on each shoulder.
The only problem is that he is not a federal agent.
His title of “federal task force agent for abused females and kids” is totally made up.
“This guy has been impersonating police” to meet women, a source told The Post of Figueroa, 54, who lives with his mother and was arrested at their Dyckman Projects home on Wednesday.
“Full [lawenforcement] light package in his car. Lights, sirens. Fake parking plaques. The whole nine.”
“But he’s really just a bodega worker.”
Figueroa pulled his fake fed act to win the heart of a 36yearold beautysalon owner from Corona, Queens, lawenforcement sources said.
Figueroa met his target in early September on Facebook, where he calls himself “Joseph Greeneyes” and posts a succession of gooey, red rosestrewn Spanishlanguage memes.
“To make love is good,” one reads. “But it is better with the person that you love.”
Also: “When you dream of that special person, and you wake up tasting their lips.”
It was on Facebook that Figueroa first showed the salon owner photos of himself in his faux federal finery.
In one snap, he sits in the front seat of a car, wearing a standard Gman crew cut and mirrored sunglasses.
“FDA AGENT J. FIGUEROA” is embroidered in gold on his navy shirt.
A badge over his heart reads, “Fugitive Recovery Agent,” more typically a designation for a bounty hunter and certainly not a federal title.
Further confusing matters, in chatting up the salon owner, he claimed he was something else entirely.
“He told her he was a federal taskforce agent for abused females and kids,” which doesn’t exist, the source said.
He also claimed, again utterly fictitiously, that he was a Navy SEAL. Oh, and a Marine. “She is nice during the first chat,” the source said. “The second time, she noticed he was weird.” Still, she agreed to meet him. “Every time he meets with her, he is in full uniform with a gun,” the source said.
Soon, “She starts to realize that he might not be legit.”
But when she tried to call it quits, he began stalking her — showing up
at her place and even bothering her friends, the source alleged.
“He was popping up at their homes at night, unannounced, telling them he was ‘the law’ and they can’t get rid of him,” the source alleged.
“At one point, he pulls up to her job and, in front of everyone, pulls his gun out and points it at her while in this fake uniform — which is why he was collared.”
Figueroa was arraigned Thursday night on charges of harassment, forgery and unlawful surveillance. He was released on $1,500 cash bail — posted by his mother.
“You f king morons!” Figueroa shouted to a Post reporter and pho tographer outside court. “You want to go to the hospital? Try taking another one of me, motherf ker, you!”
Figueroa’s priors include busts in New York City, Westchester and on Long Island for impersonating law enforcement, assault, robbery, burglary, burglary with a firearm and weapons possession.
A former coworker at the bodega on Nagle Avenue at Academy Street said Figueroa occasionally filled in there, working the cash register.
A shocked neighbor, Felix Velez, 82, said, “If I knew he was doing something like that, I would have slapped him on both sides of the face.”