A former building superintendent was convicted on Thursday on two counts of grand larceny after stealing more than $350,000 from a 98-year-old resident of the Manhattan building where she worked.
The former super, Rosalind Hernandez, was living in a Chelsea apartment building and working as the superintendent when she befriended the resident, Antonio Ruas, and gained his confidence, prosecutors said. After a time, Mr. Ruas, a retired stone setter from Brazil who was in poor health, asked her to sell his apartment and tie up his affairs in exchange for $100,000.
“For Ms. Hernandez, this generous gift was not enough — in her greed, she stole an additional $350,000 to spend on personal items,” Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said in a statement.
Ms. Hernandez gained access to Mr. Ruas’s bank accounts and credit cards and wrote large checks to people he did not know, prosecutors said. She used his cards to pay for lingerie, a haircut and a subscription to an entrepreneurship training program for herself and her niece, among other personal expenses.
She also linked his card to her Lyft account and made over $900 worth of trips, according to prosecutors.
Ms. Hernandez, 57, took advantage of Mr. Ruas’s age and the fact that English was not his first language, Mr. Bragg said.
She faces a maximum sentence of 15 years.
Ms. Hernandez was fired by the co-op board in late 2023 over concerns about her job performance, and later moved out of the building, The New York Times reported in 2024. Her lawyer, Michael Hurwitz, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Ruas, who is now 101, testified in court in the case.
In 2023, the pair were featured by The Times in a series about building superintendents. According to the article, Mr. Ruas was in the hospital at the time, recovering from a broken pelvis after falling while crossing the street. When he fell, paramedics called Ms. Hernandez because her phone number was written on a piece of paper in his wallet, and she came running.
The article called Ms. Hernandez an unofficial companion and caregiver to the retirees, widows and widowers who lived in more than half of the 53 units in the prewar building, steps away from Google’s headquarters and Chelsea Market.
“If it weren’t for her, I’d be in the gutter,” said Mr. Ruas, who was 98 at the time.
As they built a friendship, Ms. Hernandez persuaded Mr. Ruas to give her power of attorney to help him with his affairs, prosecutors said.
In the summer of 2023, Ms. Hernandez accompanied Mr. Ruas on a trip to visit his family, prosecutors said. She returned to New York City with his checkbook, bank card and credit cards, they said.
While Mr. Ruas was away, she wrote checks to two people he didn’t know, totaling more than $450,000, and purchased other personal items, prosecutors said.
It was not until Mr. Ruas returned that December that he saw most of his furniture was gone, prosecutors said. He was no longer receiving mail and Ms. Hernandez had stopped paying maintenance fees on his apartment. When he spoke to his banker, Mr. Ruas realized that half his life savings were gone. In late 2024, Ms. Hernandez was charged with larceny.
Hurubie Meko is a Times reporter covering criminal justice in New York, with a focus on the Manhattan district attorney’s office and state courts.
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