An NYPD cop used forged documents to steal a blind man’s Brooklyn property, a judge ruled Tuesday.
Officer Blanche O’Neal, 47, filed a phony deed with the city register claiming she had bought 27A Vernon Ave. in Bedford-Stuyvesant from Collie Gallman Jr., who had limited vision and lived in Waterbury, Conn. He died in January 2016 and his son Colie Gallman III represented him at O’Neal’s trial.
Prosecutors said Gallman could not have traveled from Connecticut to Brooklyn three different times to sell the home without his family knowing, as O’Neal had claimed.
There were other members of the Gallman family who’d have been in line to inherit the house, prosecutor Ellen Koenig said. The neglected property was worth over $550,000 and was also sold to a developer.
Koenig said O’Neal forged Gallman Jr.’s signature on the deed and had her friend notarize the document.
The cop testified on her own behalf at the bench trial, saying she believed she had won the property as part of a settlement for a slip and fall lawsuit she had against the building’s estate.
“Blanche O’Neal was duped… she didn’t have time to do her due diligence because she’s an NYPD officer,” her lawyer Scott Brettschneider said.
“The evidence in this case was overwhelming,” said Brooklyn Judge Danny Chun. O’Neal was convicted of perjury and filing and passing off a fake deed.
She faces up to seven years in prison.
Police suspended O’Neal from the force without pay, pending her dismissal, a spokesman said.
With Thomas Tracy