He’s going to be squatting behind bars.
A sham landlord whose topsy-turvy takeover of a woman’s $1 million house in Queens ignited fears of predatory squatters in the city was sentenced Friday to two years in prison.
The sentence ends a bizarre saga in which Range Rover-riding Brian Rodriguez, 36, in 2024 not only rented out rooms in the Flushing home, but also convinced NYPD cops that its rightful owner, Adele Andaloro, was wrongfully evicting him.
The confused cops even handcuffed Andaloro while a news crew filmed — a caught-on-video moment that she said turned out to help her cause.
“It got uglier before it got better, and I’m just happy everything’s done now,” she said outside the Queens courtroom Friday.
Andaloro had inherited the 160th Street home from her parents, but had arrived in February 2024 to find it filled with squatters and the locks changed.
She spotted Rodriguez and, after she eventually confronted him, he claimed to be leasing the home.
The baffling situation culminated in a bizarre blowup in which Rodriguez, after Andaloro had the locks replaced, stormed his way into the home.
Cops arrived and escorted Andaloro off the property.
Rodriguez contended he had been unlawfully evicted, telling The Post afterward that a mysterious benefactor named “Ronnie Ferg” that he met at a laundromat had scammed him into “renting” the house.
New York City law allows people to claim squatter’s right after being on the property for 30 days.
Queens prosecutors eventually accused Rodriguez of falsely claiming to be a legal tenant facing eviction and harassment.
He pleaded guilty in January to falsely reporting an incident, leading to his sentencing.
The sham squatter showed up in Queens court dressed in a black sweatsuit, with two women by his side. As the hearing unfolded, one of the women sobbed loudly.
“Brian Rodriguez thought that he could get away with squatting inside someone else’s home and make a profit for himself based on his fictitious account of being a tenant,” said Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz in a statement.
Andaloro told reporters that she couldn’t stand by while Rodriguez tried to steal her family home.
She had a simple desire after the whole ordeal: “Go back to a regular, boring everyday life.”
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