GLOOM AT THE INN
Bucolic-B&B duo exploited autistic man: cops
It’s a picture-perfect bed-andbreakfast in a sleepy Orange County town — with a very disturbing secret.
The owners of Silent Farm Bed and Breakfast are accused of housing a mentally disabled worker in “deplorable conditions” inside a barn on their sprawling estate in Goshen as they siphoned more than $50,000 from the victim’s bank account, police said Wednesday.
John and Mary Quick allegedly began exploiting 59-year-old Joseph Polizzi after he agreed 10 years ago to work as a farmhand on their 85acre horse farm in exchange for free room and board.
Polizzi — who cops say has high-functioning autism — first stayed in a “filthy” unheated trailer but then moved into a cramped 15-by-25-foot barn “apartment” that was no better, he told police.
“I live in the barn with the animals,” he said in a Dec. 13 deposition obtained by The Post. “I didn’t want to.”
Polizzi’s living quarters on Axworthy Lane had no heat and was insulated with bales of hay, court papers say. It also had limited running water due to freezing pipes in the wintertime.
Meanwhile, the Quicks were allegedly funneling his $626 monthly social security payments into their own accounts for at least the past five years, cops said.
Polizzi was removed from the premises Dec. 8, after a concerned tipster told the Orange County Department of Social Services he had been living in “deplorable conditions” and that his social security benefits were being withheld, police said.
In court papers, Polizzi also claimed to cops that he’d been “severely abused” by the Quicks — though he showed no signs of physical abuse.
He accused the couple of not letting him make phone calls or go to the doctor and giving him “three TV dinners” to last two weeks, he said in the deposition.
The Quicks are accused of stealing $36,811 from Polizzi, according to the criminal complaint, but state police put that number at more than $50,000.
John and Mary were arrested earlier this month on felony grand larceny charges and misdemeanor endangering the welfare of a vulnerable adult. They face up to seven years in prison if convicted.
Neither the Quicks nor their lawyers returned messages for comment.