BROOKLYN — A man who stole a half million dollar building from his landlord by forging a judge’s signature was convicted of grand larceny Thursday, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office announced.
Joseph McCray, 54, filed a forged claim in 2015 that named him as the sole owner of the four-family residence at 119 McDonough St. where he had once been a tenant, according to the Brooklyn DA.
It was the last of several attempts by the tenant who had been trying to wrestle the building from its true owner for more than a decade, said District Attorney Ken Thompson.
“After spending years trying to game the court system,” said Thompson, “this defendant brazenly forged a judge’s signature in an attempt to steal the home of a long-standing Bedford-Stuyvesant resident.”
The campaign began in 2000 when the Department of Housing Preservation and Development sold the brownstone, where McCray was a tenant, to a woman who allowed him to remain rent-free until his eviction in 2002, the DA said.
McCray began filing unsuccessful legal actions in Civil Court asserting his ownership, pretended to be the landlord to collect rent from other tenants, and in 2004 filed a faked deed with the City Register, the DA said.
Then in 2007, HSBC Bank foreclosed on the building and named both McCray and the rightful owner as defendants.
McCray used the proceedings to present his case for ownership but judges denied his claim and barred him from filing any more, the DA said.
McCray ignored this ruling and on Jan. 6, 2015 filed yet another claim — this one with the forged signature of Brooklyn Civil Supreme Court Justice Yvonne Lewis — which nullified his landlord’s deed, ended HSBC’s foreclosure action, and granted him sole ownership of the building.
McCray was able to use this document to sell the building for almost $500,000 four months later, thus terminating his hard-fought ownership, the DA said.
He cashed the first two checks from the sale the next day, but when he returned to his lawyer’s office on July 27, 2015 to pick up a check for $16,000, he was met by Sheriff’s Department officers with a warrant for his arrest.
McCray was convicted of grand larceny, criminal possession of a forged instrument, and falsifying business records Thursday, the DA said.
His sentencing hearing is scheduled for Oct. 19 — McCray faces up to 22 years in prison, according to the DA.
