A former building superintendent in Manhattan has been charged with stealing more than $350,000 from a 100-year-old tenant who lives in the co-op where she worked.
According to a complaint from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Rosalind Hernandez, 56, wrote large checks from the account of the tenant, Antonio Ruas, to two people he did not know, and used his cards to make purchases including lingerie, clothing and a subscription to an entrepreneurship training program for herself and her niece. Ms. Hernandez, who also lived in the building in Chelsea, had become the tenant’s confidante and had his power of attorney.
She pleaded not guilty to two counts of grand larceny on Thursday in New York Supreme Court. Ms. Hernandez appeared anguished and solemn as she sat with her lawyer, Vik Pawar. She was released under supervision. The next court date is Jan. 16.
In a statement, Mr. Pawar said, “Our client is presumed innocent and we intend to fight these charges vigorously.”
The building’s co-op board fired Ms. Hernandez about a year ago. “I feel like I am in ‘The Twilight Zone,’” she said in an earlier interview with The New York Times.
The Times featured Ms. Hernandez and Mr. Ruas in an article in August 2023, as part of a series on building superintendents. At the time, Mr. Ruas, a retired stone setter, was in the hospital recovering from a broken pelvis after falling while crossing the street. The paramedics called Ms. Hernandez for help because her phone number was written on a piece of paper in his wallet, and she came running.
Mr. Ruas, who exhibited cognitive decline in a recent interview with The Times alongside an interpreter, said that he offered Ms. Hernandez a monetary gift of $6,000 to help pay for the education of Ms. Hernandez’s children and that he did not recognize many expenditures from his account.
In a city where one in three older adults lives alone, building workers can serve as de facto caregivers and companions, and legal issues around money and housing arise.
The district attorney’s office declined to comment on an ongoing case, but Jeanine Launay, a lawyer and chief of the elder abuse unit, said crimes against seniors often go unreported. Emotional and physical abuse can often give way to financial abuse, including the misuse of power of attorney, theft and larceny by false pretenses (like saying you’re buying groceries when you’re actually spending the money on personal travel), she said.
“We find that a lot of times it’s people that have access to the older adults that commit crimes, and it’s usually interwoven,” Ms. Launay said.
The charges against Ms. Hernandez are only related to Mr. Ruas’s finances. Two tenants in the building described Ms. Hernandez as trustworthy and said they believed there could have been a major breakdown in communication between her and Mr. Ruas.
Ms. Hernandez began working as the superintendent of Chelsea Hall, a 53-unit building, in 2018. Over time, she became friendly with and went beyond the scope of her duties to care for some senior tenants, including Mr. Ruas, who has lived in the building for more than 40 years.
Forty percent of people over 55 live without caregiving support, according to the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. In a building with a high percentage of senior tenants, Ms. Hernandez was often called upon to help with activities of daily living. She even accompanied Mr. Ruas on trips to Brazil, where he grew up. On their last trip together, Mr. Ruas stayed and Ms. Hernandez returned to New York.
According to the district attorney’s office, Mr. Ruas had given Ms. Hernandez power of attorney, at her suggestion, and had tasked the superintendent “with selling his apartment and tying up his affairs in exchange for $100,000.”
Ms. Hernandez had his checkbook, bank card and credit cards, according to the office, and used them to write large checks totaling more than $450,000 to two people unknown to Mr. Ruas and to make several personal transactions totaling over $6,000. The district attorney’s office subtracted $100,000 from the total filed in their original complaint to account for compensation offered by Mr. Ruas for handling his affairs.
After she returned from the Brazil trip in September 2023, Ms. Hernandez also faced concerns from the co-op board about her job performance, starting with two warning letters issued one week apart in October 2023. Ms. Hernandez said she was shocked, adding that the board had not previously complained about her performance.
The board fired her in November 2023 and ordered her to move out by December 2023. By January, the board began eviction proceedings. In court, Ms. Hernandez argued that she was owed unpaid wages and overtime. Her housing dispute was set to go to trial in October, but she settled and recently moved out. She said her settlement agreement prohibits her from speaking further to The Times.
In an interview with The Times last year, the co-op board’s president, Rob Faunce, described Ms. Hernandez as “tenacious” and “nurturing.” Mr. Faunce and Peter R. Massa, a lawyer who represented the building in housing court, did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
Earlier this year, Mr. Ruas approached a neighbor in the building and asked for help to look at his bank statements. The neighbor said they saw a difference of almost $500,000 between September 2023 and October 2023. The neighbor, who now has Mr. Ruas’s power of attorney, asked to be anonymous to protect his privacy.
The two men went to the bank, where a teller printed out images of checks totaling $485,000 endorsed by Ms. Hernandez and written out to a name they did not recognize. Mr. Ruas also said his bank statements included pages of charges for beauty salons, movies, restaurants, electronics and taxis, with totals ranging from $3,000 to $16,000.
In the recent interview, Mr. Ruas did not recall meeting a reporter and a photographer last year for the article in the series. But last week, sitting in his apartment decorated with little portraits of Rio’s beaches and mountains, with the neighbor who has power of attorney, Mr. Ruas said that he felt betrayed and expressed wanting the best for everyone involved.
“I feel calm, I have the help of my friend here, you know, who protects me a lot, you know?” Mr. Ruas said. “And I pray for her every night and morning, you know? I pray sincerely. I don’t resent her or anything. I just want her to give me the money back.”
There is currently an order of protection between the two, but they are allowed “incidental contact” because Ms. Hernandez is employed by another senior tenant in the building.
On Thursday, the judge granted the district attorney’s request for a slightly accelerated legal process because of Mr. Ruas’s age.
A few weeks ago, tenants celebrated his centennial birthday with flowers in a vase on a table in the lobby and a sign reading, “Happy 100th birthday, Antonio Ruas born October 1924.”
As Ms. Hernandez was preparing to move out, she teared up as she spoke to a reporter. “I can’t even wish Antonio a happy birthday,” she said.
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