Crime & Safety
Cop Sentenced To 6 Months For Stealing Bed-Stuy House, DA Says
Police officer Blanche O'Neal was convicted earlier this year of forging the deed to a Vernon Avenue house, prosecutors said.
BEDFORD-STUYVESANT, BROOKLYN — A police officer who stole a Bed-Stuy townhouse from the deceased owner's nephew was sentenced to six months in prison Wednesday, prosecutors announced.
Police Officer Blanche O'Neal, 49, was sentenced following a February conviction for forging a deed to the three-family home at 23A Vernon Ave. on Sept. 12, 2012, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced.
The building had been vacant since owner Lillian Hudson died and left it to a nephew and other relatives in 1993, said prosecutors.
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O'Neal forged the nephew's signature in faked records of a $10,000 sale that she filed with the New York City Department of Finance and Office of the City Register, prosecutors said.
The cop even testified before a grand jury that she owned the building on Sept. 29, 2014, after the house was burglarized, said prosecutors.
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The rightful owners only discovered the house theft a potential buyer contacted them in 2014 and they found O'Neal's forged filings, prosecutors said.
The Bed-Stuy woman was convicted of perjury, criminal possession of a forged instrument and offering a false instrument for filing in Brooklyn Criminal Court on Feb. 13, said prosecutors.
Photo courtesy of GoogleMaps/Sept. 2017
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