MAN TRIES TO BLOW UP OWN $4.7M HOUSE
Rich guy’s marriage (& ‘suicide’ blast) flop
AFTER THE BREAK-UP came the blow-up.
A wealthy Upper West Side entrepreneur, distraught over the implosion of his marriage, tried to kill himself and destroy his $4.7 million brownstone with a gas explosion, police sources said Friday.
Charles Welsh, 52, instead suffered only minor injuries to his legs after botching his bid to blow the four-story building to smithereens around 10:50 p.m. Thursday, police said.
Welsh, who ripped a huge hole in the side of his home’s elegant stone staircase, cut the gas line to the pricey residence before the blast that rattled the homes and nerves of neighbors.
“It’s scary — he could have taken us all away,” said neighbor Juan Sanguinetti, 38. “Thankfully, God — somebody — prevented the worst from happening. To jeopardize everyone else in this way, I can’t imagine.”
Next-door neighbor Fred Valle, after watching the Knicks beat the Celtics, heard the explosion and ran outside to see a confused Welsh standing in the doorway of 143 W. 94th St.
“He’s looking out and I say, ‘Charles, hey! Are you OK? We’ve got to call 911!’ ” recalled Valle. “And he’s looking at me, stunned, like he’s in shock. And then he went back inside.”
Valle said his typically friendly neighbor became withdrawn in recent months, and he even texted Welsh two weeks ago to ask if everything was OK.
“But I never heard back,” he said.
Welsh was charged with arson and taken to Mount Sinai St. Luke’s hospital after managing to set off only a small blast in the basement of his home off Amsterdam Ave.
Detectives were investigating whether Welsh was trying to destroy the building and take his own life because he was upset his wife was leaving him, a police source said. Nobody else was home at the time of the blast.
The explosion echoed a July 2006 Upper East Side blast in which the owner of a $9 million townhouse killed himself and demolished the home rather than lose the place in a bitter divorce.
Welsh bought the brownstone in 2008 for $4.7 million and took a $1 million mortgage on it six years later, records show.
He conveyed half the value of the home to his wife Emmanuelle Petillon in 2012, records show. Valle said Petillon never let on about any marital issues.
“She was always smiling,” he recalled. “The kids would come in and out. Other than him, it was all normal.”
The couple have at least three children.
Building inspectors discovered wall and door damage in the basement after the failed suicide bid but determined the building remains structurally sound.
Welsh is the founder of Inside International Industries, a financial information organization, and previously co-founded the Mergermarket Group — another financial information firm.
The well-connected businessman speaks French and serves on a committee at the Dwight School, a tony Upper West Side private school.