Man Sentenced To 6 Years For Stealing Landmarked Fort Greene Home

FORT GREENE, NY — A man who hired an impostor to pose as dead homeowners to steal a landmarked Fort Greene mansion will spend up to six years behind bars for the scheme, prosecutors said.

Aderibigbe Ogundiran, 36, of Crown Heights, was sentenced to two to six years in prison Wednesday for stealing or trying to steal six homes around central Brooklyn, District Attorney Eric Gonzalez announced.

From February 2015 to December 2016, Ogundiran targeted six homes in Fort Greene, Crown Heights, Bed-Stuy and East New York whose owners died or seemed to abandon, prosecutors said.

His scheme included the theft of a landmarked mansion across from Fort Greene Park at 176 Washington Park that would eventually lead to his arrest, authorities said.

Ogundiran would use fake names, corporations, forged driver's license, bogus deeds and hire people to impersonate dead homeowners to get control of the homes, prosecutors said.

The 10-bedroom, 19th-century mansion at 176 Washington Park was owned by a deceased man whose elderly sister still lived in the home.

On March 8, 2015, Ogundiran filed a deed transferring the 19th-century home from the owner to a corporation controlled by Ogundiran, prosecutors said. He hired a person to pretend to be the homeowner and was able to take control of the property on June 26, 2015, Gonzalez said.

When the owner's sister got an eviction order after Ogundiran took over, she contacted investigators who started to look into Ogundiran's scheme, prosecutors said.

The other homes Ogundiran stole or tried to steal in the scheme were 123 Albany Ave. in Crown Heights, 42 Albany Ave. in Bed-Stuy, 1024 Hendrix St. in East New York, 1424 Fulton St. in Bed-Stuy and 49 Albany Ave. in Bed-Stuy.

In at least one case, Ogundiran collected rent from a tenant after he rented out an apartment in one of the homes he stole. He was also caught on videotape filing a Power of Attorney for 1424 Fulton St. after the real owner got an alert about the document, prosecutors said.

He was arrested in May 2017 for the scheme and indicted on grand larceny, scheme to defraud, forgery, identity theft, and criminal impersonation charges, prosecutors said.

Ogundiran pleaded guilty to grand larceny and scheme to defraud on March 7 and sentenced by Judge Danny Chun in Brooklyn Supreme Court on Wednesday.

"All too often we are seeing thieves targeting seemingly abandoned properties to try to cash in on Brooklyn’s soaring real estate prices," Gonzalez said in a statement. "With today’s sentence, the defendant has been held accountable."

Image: Google Maps