SANDY SLIME
4 busted in plot to steal $300G in storm aid
WHILE OTHERS suffered Hurricane Sandy’s brutal aftermath, four schemers stole from a city repair program meant to help homeowners hit hard by the storm, city investigators charged Wednesday.
Three homeowners were charged with filing false documents to steal nearly $300,000 from the Build It Back program, a taxpayer-funded effort to repair primary residences wrecked in October 2012.
The three were charged with getting Build It Back funds to repair their second homes.
A fourth was caught when she tried to obtain funds on a Rockaway Park home she’d taken possession of from a dead woman. Prosecutors say she didn’t get repair funds but did steal $1 million from the woman’s estate.
City Department of Investigation Commissioner Mark Peters said his agency also found contractors routinely inflating their bills. No contractors were charged Wednesday, but Peters said his investigation was “ongoing.”
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the four are “accused of using one of the worst natural disasters to ever strike New York in recent history to unjustly enrich themselves.”
Prosecutors say George Bonitsis, 67, who lives in Brooklyn, got $125,802 in construction work from Build It Back, while John Holl, 73, who lives in Long Island, got $86,560, prosecutors charged.
John Phelan, 54, fraudulently obtained $66,371 to repair a secondary home in Breezy Point he co-owned with his mother, prosecutors allege.
Prosecutors said he lives on Long Island and she lives in Maspeth, Queens.
However, his lawyer, Eric Franz, claimed the son committed no crime because his mother’s primary residence was in Breezy Point.
The Department of Investigation also alleged that Donata Rea, 58, put in for Build It Back reimbursement on a home she’d obtained through the estate of a woman who’d died in 2011.
The department charged Rea with fraudulently assuming ownership of the dead woman’s homes, alleging that she stole $1 million from the woman’s estate. Rea was not reimbursed by Build It Back.
All four defendants were released without bail Wednesday in Queens Supreme Court.
Holl said the charges are a mistake. Rea and Bonitsis declined comment.
Matt Viggiano, a spokesman for the Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations, said the agency aided the Investigation Department in its probe.
“We will not let bad actors get in the way of our goal of providing safe, resilient housing for those that need it most,” he said.