The city has quietly turned a former hotel into a taxpayer-funded den for child predators and other sex offenders — located less than 250 feet from a playground, The Post has learned.
At least five level 2 and level 3 sex offenders — the worst of the worst, including one monster who had sex with a 7-year-old — are living in a homeless shelter at 61 Chrystie St., 243 feet from the Hester Street Playground in Chinatown.
“There’s so much wrong with this, I don’t even know where to begin,” said resident Brian Chin, the father of a 4-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl who he no longer allows on that playground.
“Finding out that the city has secretly been putting child predators into an all-expenses paid hotel overlooking the children’s park, on the taxpayers dime, it verges on being almost unbelievable,” said the irate dad, a neighborhood activist who researched the hotel and discovered the city was placing sex offenders there.
“The sheer amount of sex offenders concentrated in that one hotel, the fact that they’re free to roam around, and that it’s literally situated directly across from the kids park and the local high school, it’s appalling.”
State law prohibits level 2 and 3 sex offenders, who are considered at medium and high risk of reoffending, from living within 1,320 feet — or a quarter mile — of playgrounds, schools, parks and childcare facilities.
“We don’t even know how many level 1 sex offenders are living there because they’re not listed [in the state sex-offender registry],” Chin said of the lowest level predators.
The shelter was once a boutique hotel called Hotel MB and before that a Comfort Inn. It was converted into a homeless facility in the summer of 2021, according to reports online. It is not clear when the city began moving in the sex offenders or how many of them live at the site. The Post has reached out to city officials.
The shelter is run by a Bronx-based non-profit called the Neighborhood Association for Inter-Cultural Affairs Inc. (NAICA), which has pocketed nearly $1.3 billion in city contracts the past decade, records show.
NAICA’s Chrystie Street location was part of a four-year $160.5 million contract with DHS to provide 467 beds for single adults there and at two other locations in the Bronx and Queens, according to the city Comptroller’s office.
That deal expired June 30, but DHS ironed out a one-year, $42.2 million extension, according to a legal notice on the city’s website. The new contract has yet to be registered with the Comptroller’s office.
The sex offenders living there, according to the state’s Sex Offender Registry, include:
- Darren Jackson, 63: Level-3 offender convicted in 2010 for raping a 7-year-old girl multiple times and sentenced to three years in prison.
- Lemar Jackson, 57: Level 3 offender convicted in 2008 for deviate sexual intercourse for using threats and physically overpowering 12- and 9-year-old girls and sentenced to two to four years in state prison.
- Elvin Vega, 57: Level 3 offender convicted in 1998 for using a blunt object to force a female of unknown age to have intercourse, and sentenced to 18 months to three years in state prison.
- Legrand Jones, 63: Level 2 sexually violent offender convicted of sexual abuse in 2003 for overpowering a 21-year-old woman and forcing her to have sex. Sentenced to two to four years in prison.
- Terrence Brown, 59: Level 2 offender convicted of forcible touching another person’s intimate parts in 2009 and sentenced to six months.
Some area activists became aware the hotel was being used as a shelter for parolees back in 2021 and raised their concerns — but nothing changed, according to Jacky Wong, managing director of the greater Chinatown Civic Coalition.
“Both DHS [Department of Homeless Services] and the hotel owner had previously assured us that this parolee shelter would close in June 2022,” Wong said. “But they lied. It’s still operating. This shelter, along with other nearby facilities for single men, has directly and indirectly contributed to increased crime and safety concerns in and around Sara D. Roosevelt Park.”
Murder, rape, robbery and assault are all up so far this year over last in the 5th Precinct, which encapsulates most of Chinatown.
There have been two murders in the precinct this year so far as compared to none in the same period last year, according to NYPD data. Robbery is up 29%, to 76 incidents so far this year from 59 last year. Felony assault has increased 3.9% to 106 so far this year, compared to 102 in the same span of last year. Rape is up 80% to nine so far this year compared to five in the same period of 2024, the data show.
Wong pointed to the assault and attempted rape of an 80-year-old woman in November near the corner of Grand Street and Chrystie Street.
“There is no accountability from these shelter operators, and DHS continues to target low-income communities of color like ours for these placements,” he said. “This is discriminatory and unacceptable.”
Sex offenders aren’t supposed to be housed in shelters in residential neighborhoods, said Republican mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa.
“This is part of the shelter problem,” Sliwa said. “It’s become a cottage industry where there are contracts and then obviously, the people who get the contracts, subcontract out, all the ancillary services to friends and relatives and associates, but the one thing that they should be doing is vetting who it is that actually is in a shelter and they don’t.”
The city Department of Social Services released a statement saying that not everyone required to register in the sex offender database has residency restrictions.
“DSS provides shelter to anyone in need in accordance with New York City’s right to shelter law while also ensuring compliance with all necessary local laws and regulations which includes being mindful of any residency restrictions and specific criteria laid out in state law,” the statement said.
The agency didn’t respond to a follow up question about why level 2 and 3 offenders were permitted to live so close to a playground.
Many people who were in the park with their children Wednesday were upset to learn of the shelter sickos.
“I’m super pissed off, I’m talking to my husband right now on the phone and he’s extremely mad as well,” said a 29-year-old mom who takes her two kids to the playground at least twice a week. “They shouldn’t be anywhere near the park.”
Brooklyn choreographer John Quinones, a 42-year-old grandfather, was “horrified.”
“I’m the type of person that would want to take actions into my own hands and probably get in trouble,” he said.
Resident Daiya Williams was adamant that the city should have at least notified parents.
“Given it’s New York City anything can happen, and I don’t want to take the chance,” she said. “It’s not safe.”
Chin plans to keep calling attention to the problem.
“Placing violent child sex predators across from our children’s park, the city and the officials who approved this need to be held accountable,” the dad said. “I think I can confidently speak for all of us when I say that enough is enough.”
NAICA did not return requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Samantha Olander
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