A Long Island man who forged a deed in order to steal a vacant brownstone building from an elderly homeowner has been sentenced to one-and-a-half to four-and-a-half years in prison, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Craig Hecht, 52, of Mount Sinai, New York, pled guilty to second-degree grand larceny and second-degree money laundering in December 2019.
He was facing up to 15 years in prison.
The real owner of the property is an 81-year-old retired teacher named Ernestina Thomas. According to the District Attorney’s Office, Thomas lived in the building with her family until a fire made it uninhabitable in 2010.
The deed fraud scheme
In April 2015, Hecht formed a limited liability company called Ernestina Thomas LLC, and a codefendant opened a bank account called Ernestina Thomas LLC.
In September 2015, Hecht and the codefendant used a deed with Thomas’ forged signature to transfer the property to another entity they controlled.
The forged deed has an acknowledgement which states that the seller personally appeared before a notary and proved her identity. It’s not exactly clear why the notary signed it.
In November 2015, Hecht and the codefendant sold the building to an unsuspecting buyer for $850,000.
Thomas contacted the District Attorney’s Office after a neighbor informed her that someone was working on the building.
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Danny Chun nullified the forged deed and ordered Hecht to pay $850,000 in restitution to the buyer’s title insurance company. Hecht received more than $250,000 from the proceeds of the sale.
The codefendant withdrew $120,000 in cash and transferred $190,000 to an account in Athens, Greece. He has not been arrested.