SAINT ‘NICK’
Man charged with hate crime for robbing churches: ‘I break in to get back at God’
A man allegedly robbed three Queens churches and a Hindu temple “because I’m mad at God .” Joseph Woznik (here in court last night) was slapped with the rare charge of hatecrime burglary.
A homeless drifter was busted on unusual hate-crime charges for a spree of church heists after confessing that he did it “to get back at God,” authorities said Wednesday.
Joseph Woznik, 23, is accused of burglarizing three Christian churches and a Hindu temple in Queens during an unholy stretch that started March 21.
“I’m mad at God. I don’t like church no more. I don’t want to deal with religion. I’m sick and tired of hearing about religion. I don’t break into houses, only churches. I break in to get back at God,” Woznik allegedly told cops.
The sacrilegious suspect, who is charged with multiple counts of burglary and grand larceny as hate crimes, is also wanted in a Feb. 26 church burglary in Winter Garden, Fla., cops there said.
In an ironic twist, Woznik had been stopped for a traffic violation in Winter Garden about two weeks earlier and gave an address registered to a faith-based charity, the Crisis Assistance Ministry in Gastonia, NC, records show.
Woznik lived in Crown Heights until about a year ago, the NYPD said.
The priest at one of his alleged targets, St. Mary’s Romanian Orthodox Church in Elmhurst, where a burglar alarm went off early on Palm Sunday, was stunned to learn of Woznik’s alleged motive.
“If he would have prayed, I am sure God would have helped him,” Father Bertea Chesariet said in Romanian translated by his son, Justin.
Woznik allegedly swiped a metal box used to hold communion wafers and the church’s corporate seal embosser during that caper.
His first suspected heist was at the Bangladesh Hindu Mandir Temple in Flushing, where an employee found three donation boxes forced open upon arriving at work on March 21, officials said.
“A couple of security cameras caught a gentleman walk- ing around outside at 5:30 in the morning,” said Mohua Dutta, director of the temple’s executive board.
“We are puzzled by what happened. There was no sign of breakage. We are not sure whether a door was left open.”
Three days later, an administrator at St. James Episcopal Church in Flushing discovered that the door to the church’s office had been pried open and a lockbox holding about $1,800 was missing, officials said.
Woznik allegedly returned to St. James two more times, with a priest finding the office ransacked and a Canon digital camera missing on April 3.
Three checks were also swiped from the office during a break-in discovered on Monday, with surveillance video capturing a man using his shoulder to force open the office door, authorities said.
“By the third time, we had nothing inside so he took blank checks,” Father Paul Lai, a priest at St. James said.
The same day, a priest at St. Mary’s of Winfield Church in Woodside found a window in an office door broken and a donation box lying on the floor next to a hammer.
Surveillance video captured Woznik using the hammer on the box the previous evening, and he confessed to stealing $20 from under a statue of the Virgin Mary following his arrest Tuesday, authorities said.
Other evidence against him includes surveillance video showing the St. James burglar wearing a backpack that matches one Woznik had with him when he was busted Tuesday, officials said.
Two of the stolen St. James checks were in the backpack, along with a pawn-shop ticket for a Canon camera.
Woznik has had previous arrests in Queens for possession of marijuana and possession of stolen property.
He was charged with six counts of third-degree burglary as a hate crime Wednesday night in Queens Criminal Court and ordered held in lieu of $200,000 bail.