More than a dozen people conspired to steal the deed to a Harlem brownstone so they could sell it for profit, the Manhattan district attorney’s office alleged Thursday.
The office said it had indicted 18 people and three companies on charges of conspiracy, grand larceny, residential mortgage fraud and other crimes. Not all the defendants had appeared before a judge as of Thursday afternoon, but those who did all pleaded not guilty, according to the DA’s office.
Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg said the brownstone on 131st Street had been left to the owner’s husband, two children and a grandchild after she died in 2018. He said the defendants spent several years hatching a plan to steal the building for their own benefit.
“This was a scam through and through,” Bragg said at a press conference Thursday.
Prosecutors said the defendants created fake IDs and birth certificates that they used to facilitate an illegal sale of the property.
One of the defendants used those forged documents to pose as an heir to the property, then sold it to someone else, according to the DA’s office. The purchaser sold the property again to a company also named in the indictment, prosecutors said.
None of the legal owners signed any documents involved in those sales or permitted anyone else to sign on their behalf, according to the DA’s office.
The defendants each pocketed thousands of dollars from the proceeds of a mortgage they took out on the property, Bragg said.
Thursday’s announcement expands on an indictment announced against several of the defendants last fall.
Several of the defendants are related to Councilmember Darlene Mealy of Brooklyn, Bragg said Thursday. Mealy’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
