Ex-Con Pinched For Allegedly Using Phony Deed To Hijack Title, Possession Of Elderly Woman's Vacant NYC Home

In Laurelton, Queens, the New York Post reports:

• He may soon be living for free ­behind bars.
  
  The ex-con who allegedly filed a fake deed to steal an elderly woman’s Queens home was arrested Tuesday in Housing Court, where he was brazenly fighting eviction.
  
  Darrell Beatty, 49, was charged with grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property for allegedly illegally transferring the deed of a Laurelton home into his name and moving in with his two sons.
  
  The Post on Sunday reported the alleged scheme, which could send Beatty to prison for more than 15 years.
  
  It was sweet relief for Jennifer Merin, whose family bought the house in 1930. “I heard the words, ‘You’re under arrest,’ and I [thought], ‘Thank God,’ ” said Merin, who saw sheriffs take Beatty into custody in a hallway. “I think I almost fainted with joy at that moment. I have really been waiting to hear those words for so long. I hope he is put away for a long time.”
  
  
  Beatty allegedly filed a deed transfer in March listing himself as the owner of the three-bedroom ­Tudor, which had been empty for a decade with Merin living in Manhattan, prosecutors said Tuesday.
  
  He listed the previous owner as Edith Moore, but nobody by that name has ever owned the property, said Queens DA Richard Brown.
  
  Merin still had many of her family’s prized possessions in the home, which Beatty piled up in a heap in the garage. She first realized the home was ­being illegally occupied when her water bill spiked in late May. “This woman’s home — her sanctuary filled with the memories of three generations — was allegedly taken from her with the filing of a phony deed,” Brown said.
  
  Merin’s Russian and Ukrainian grandparents moved into the row house on 141st Avenue in 1931 and raised three children there, including Merin’s mom.“The house was maintained basically as a sanctuary to my family,” Merin told The Post, adding that she paid insurance, taxes and utility bills on the property and would visit every few months.
  
  “The arrest is, in part, resolution. Obviously it doesn’t get me my house back, it doesn’t get me any of my belongings back,” Merin said. “But at least it gives me a sense of that there is some kind of right­eousness in our city and that people are working on making justice prevail.”
  
  Beatty was arraigned at Queens Criminal Court and held on $29,000 bail Tuesday.

Source: Ex-con arrested for filing fake deed to steal woman’s home.

For an earlier story, see The extraordinary ‘theft’ of a woman’s NYC home.

For the Queens District Attorney press release, see Queens Man Charged With Filing Fake Deed And Stealing Family Home From Elderly Woman (If Convicted The Defendant Faces Up To 15 Years In Prison).