A ghoulish Manhattan building super allegedly conned a 101-year-old tenant out of $350,000 because she thought he was “going to die” soon — but he is still alive and kicking, he showed a court Tuesday.
Centenarian Antonio Ruas dramatically took the stand at the trial of his former super Rosalind Hernandez, who’s accused of taking advantage of the elderly man by convincing him to grant her power of attorney over his finances.
“She said, ‘Antonio, you have to sign a document because if anything happens to you, I have to get in touch with your family in Brazil,” Ruas testified through a Portuguese interpreter about the moment Hernandez, 57, allegedly persuaded him to sign the legal document.
The alleged scheme took form after Ruas, a retired diamond cutter, suffered a near-fatal fall in 2023 and decided to go back to his native Brazil to be with his family, according to his testimony and prosecutors.
“She thought I was going to die there and that she could keep all of the stuff,” he testified in Manhattan Supreme Court about his former trusted super.
The elderly man had owned a co-op apartment at the pre-war Chelsea Hall building on West 16th Street for 40 years, and lived there with his partner, who tragically died during the COVID pandemic in 2020.
Hernandez — who was described as a “lifeline” for senior tenants in a New York Times profile — started to become “very friendly” with Ruas after his partner died, stepping in to help and even accompanying him on a few trips to Brazil in 2022, prosecutors have said.
“She stopped by to chat, she brought her teenage children to have dinner with Mr. Ruas. She was eager to be helpful to him especially with his finances,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Raphaelle Monty said during opening statements Monday.
But in July 2023, Ruas fell on the street, hitting his head, and was hospitalized for a week.
When he told Hernandez that he’d be going back to Brazil, Ruas testified his super told him she’d take care of selling his apartment for him and helping pull his affairs together — leading him to sign over power of attorney.
“She was going to do everything for me,” Ruas said on the stand Tuesday. “She was going to sell my apartment, she was going to transfer my social security to Brazil. I believed it.”
Ruas, who had around $700,000 in his bank account, said he gifted Hernandez $100,000 because he figured he wasn’t “going to last long anyway.”
But he grew suspicious after not receiving money from Hernandez for the sale of his apartment, he testified.
He returned to New York City later that year and discovered that his apartment hadn’t been sold.
Meanwhile, Hernandez, who had access to Ruas’ Citibank account, had sent checks totaling over $450,000 to her boyfriend and another check to her sister in law, prosecutors said.
Jurors on Tuesday saw pictures of the six checks allegedly signed by Hernandez, which were dated between August and October 2023 — including one to her beau for $168,000.
Prosecutors claim Hernandez used Ruas’ credit and debit cards to buy herself thousands of dollars of beauty products, clothes and self improvement subscriptions.
Hernandez, who managed the 53-unit Chelsea co-op building, was fired sometime after she was indicted in November 2024.
The former super is charged with two counts of grand larceny and faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, if convicted. She has pleaded not guilty.
Hernandez once was praised as a “lifeline for senior tenants” in a glowing 2023 New York Times profile — in which Ruas was quoted as saying, “If it weren’t for (Hernandez), I’d be in the gutter.”
When asked by Hernandez’s attorney, Michael Hurwitz, on cross examination whether he ever talked up Hernandez with a reporter, the 101-year-old said he didn’t remember.
Jurors began deliberating later Tuesday.
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