‘He can’t be released again’
The violent vagrant who has terrorized a Brooklyn neighborhood for years is finally behind bars after yet another groping attack on a helpless victim — and locals are breathing a sigh of relief.
“Greenpoint goon” Christopher Boissard, 33, is locked up at Rikers Island on $30,000 bail on sex abuse, forcible touching and harassment charges after accosting a woman on July 5 — just the latest in a nearly decade-long reign of terror that has had the neighborhood on edge.
“I’m glad he’s locked up,” resident Janet Velez told The Post. “He can’t be released again. The judge can’t release him. He needs to be kept in a mental facility where they can give him the help he badly needs.
“Three weeks ago I saw him harassing a lady. He was pushing her and charging at her like he was going to hit her,” Velez said. “He is very violent and he needs thorough psychiatric treatment.”
Locals and sources say it’s Boissard’s MO — the troublesome maniac is a registered level 3 sex offender with 39 arrests since 2011, including a bust for molesting a 19-year-old woman in 2021.
And yet, he has always dodged serious jail time — in part because court records maintain he is “deaf and mute,” which has made it harder to place him in a long-term treatment facility that can accommodate him.
“I was coming from the train and going home, and he came up behind me,” said Maria Alejandra, who was allegedly slugged by Boissard on July 19, 2023, and sent to the hospital.
“I fell to the ground and a woman came to help me,” she said. “He just kept walking like normal. I was dizzy but I kept walking home. I called my husband to come get me and we went to his home. We called the police but he hid in the apartment and they couldn’t find him.”
She said she spotted the vagrant across the street three weeks ago and froze from fear.
“I went by there and I saw him,” Alejandra said Thursday. “I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ he’s still here! I’m afraid for myself, for all the women he’s attacked. He needs to be kept in jail.
“How could they keep releasing him and he keeps doing the same thing.”
In the latest arrest — the one that got him locked up — Brooklyn prosecutors said Boissard stepped out of a local store on Manhattan Avenue and fondled a woman who was running by, grabbing her breasts.
He was arrested days later and charged, with prosecutors this time demanding bail and presenting the case to a grand jury, which voted to indict him. An arraignment date has yet to be scheduled.
In the meantime he’s being held on $30,000 cash bail or a $90,000 bond, prosecutors said.
Boissard’s past arrests have mainly been misdemeanors, which carry a maximum jail sentence of one year — and means he can’t be held while the case is pending under the state’s lenient bail system.
According to records. he has been sent to court-ordered alcohol rehab in Atlanta, Georgia, and upstate Rochester, but has either been kicked out or walked away from the programs and returned to Greenpoint.
“He needs mental treatment,” said Rajiv Ahmed, who works at 1068 Mini Mart Deli in Greenpoint, where the manager keeps a metal rod behind the counter to force Boissard away when he shows up.
“They need to take him to the psychiatric hospital,” Ahmed said. “He’s been arrested too many times and nothing changes.”
One local woman who asked to be identified only as Elaine told The Post she carries pepper spray in her bag specifically to ward off Boissard if he comes near her or others in the area.
“He harasses women, he gropes women, he starts trouble,” she said. “Last year I was waiting for the bus in front of my house and he was chasing a woman who ran and hid behind me.
“I stood my ground, put my hand up and he saw I wasn’t playing, and he backed off. I had to put the lady on the bus and tell the bus driver to let her off at the next stop so she could go to work.
“Justice has to be served,” Elaine added. “It’s not fair to those in the community who are afraid to walk in the street because of one person threatening women.”