West Village residents claim their building’s “squatter from hell” is continuing to terrorize them — forcing them to run from their beds in fright as he screams death threats and bangs on walls so hard they shake, new court filings detail.
But the terrified tenants of 400 Bleecker St. will have to wait at least another two months for potential relief from the nightmarish situation involving their accused tormentor, 66-year-old Melvin DeJesus.
A Manhattan judge on Tuesday delayed a hearing in the building owner’s bid to boot the alleged squatter until June after he made rambling claims in court about needing medical assistance.
The Brodsky Organization filed a $5.5 million lawsuit seeking to ban DeJesus, 66, from the 5th-floor rent-controlled unit he commandeered following the longtime tenant John Grafenecker’s death at 84 last fall.
Since then, DeJesus has allegedly agonized his neighbors, keeping them up all night with noxious parties, yelling death threats and at one point, storing a four-gallon jug of gasoline outside his door, according to the suit.
The company won a restraining order in February barring him from harassing tenants, and he also faces separate eviction proceedings brought against him by the landlord.
Residents called the cops last month after DeJesus allegedly smashed their Ring doorbell camera, leading to his arrest — but none of it appears to be able to stop the alleged madness.
Neighbors now claim the building — where a two-bedroom unit recently rented for $6,700 a month — is “uninhabitable.”
Tenants said they’ve been so frightened, they’ve had to flee the building “multiple times” in recent weeks, according to the new filings in Manhattan Supreme Court.
“On a near nightly basis, he bangs on our doors, and walls until as late as 5:00 a.m.,” one wrote in a March 29 email — claiming the all-night death threats are still going on more than a month after the court order demanded an end to the mayhem.
Multiple inhabitants claimed they’ve had to sleep elsewhere out of fear — including one who said they ran away from DeJesus at 3 a.m. last month.
“The banging on the apartment is so intense that it is shaking our unit,” wrote another tenant, adding they worried something “could come through the ceiling or walls.”
Others said they feared even entering or leaving the walkup “due to concerns about encountering [DeJesus].”
The accused nuisance neighbor arrived late to the scheduled court hearing Tuesday, loudly mumbling that he had just left the ER and needed an ambulance or he would “die here.”
Despite his claims of being in the throes of a medical emergency and suffering from a foot injury, DeJesus spent much of the morning muttering and cursing to himself as he paced around the circular hallways of the 60 Centre St. courthouse.
Occasionally, DeJesus loudly clarified for nearby court officers who might mistake his activity as a sign of good health that, actually, he was on the brink.
“It’s all going black! It’s all going black!” he shouted at one point, demanding an ambulance.
When the case was called, Judge Kathy J. King immediately granted a two-month adjournment without asking any questions of either DeJesus or the building’s attorney — who thought he was going to be heard on the hail-mary motion seeking a new restraining order barring the alleged menace from the building.
When the lawyer, Paul Coppe, asked the judge a question, DeJesus interjected vigorously.
“If you wanna go on, let’s go on,” he said loudly.
But rather than take him up on the offer, the judge told him to wait until the new date in June.
DeJesus’ March arrest marked the latest case in a long rap sheet that includes an attempted murder charge from 1987 in The Bronx.
He has argued that he has a right to remain in the desirable unit because he was the life partner of the now-deceased tenant, John Grafenecker, who lived there since 1946 and had taken him in — a claim neighbors and a close relative say is likely bunk.
