Local residents are breathing a sigh of relief as a violent vagrant who has terrorized a Brooklyn neighborhood for years is finally behind bars for yet another molesting incident against a helpless victim.
“Greenpoint Thug” Christopher Boissard, 33, is being held in Rikers Island Jail on $30,000 bail on charges of sexual assault, indecent assault and harassment after accosting a woman on July 5. It’s just the latest episode in a nearly decade-long reign of terror that has strained the neighborhood.
“I’m glad he’s in prison,” resident Janet Velez told The Washington Post. “He’s not going to be released again. The judge can’t release him. He needs to be put in a psychiatric hospital and get the help he so desperately needs.”
“Three weeks ago I saw him harassing a woman. He pushed her down and lunged at her as if he was going to punch her,” Velez said. “He is extremely violent and needs intensive psychiatric treatment.”
Locals and sources say this is Boissard’s modus operandi: the troublesome lunatic is a registered Level 3 sex offender who has been arrested 39 times since 2011, including in 2021 on suspicion of sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman.
Yet he has always avoided serious prison time, in part because court records describe him as “deaf and mute,” making it difficult to get him into a long-term treatment facility that could accommodate him.
“I got off the train and was walking home when he came up to me from behind,” said Maria Alejandra, who was allegedly punched by Boissard on July 19, 2023, and taken to the hospital.
“I fell to the ground and a woman came to help me,” she said. “He carried on walking normally. I felt dizzy but I carried on walking home. I called my husband to come pick me up and we went to his house. I called the police but he was hiding in his apartment and the police couldn’t find him.”
She said she spotted a vagrant across the street three weeks ago and was frozen with fear.
“I was walking by and I saw him,” Alejandra said Thursday. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s still here!’ I’m scared for myself and for the women he attacked. He should stay in prison.”
“How can they keep releasing him and he keep doing the same thing?”
According to Brooklyn prosecutors, Boissard left a local store on Manhattan Avenue and grabbed and fondled the woman’s breasts as she ran away. The arrest led to Boissard being jailed.
He was arrested and indicted a few days later. Prosecutors have now requested bail and presented the case to a grand jury, which voted to indict him. A date for arraignment has not yet been set.
In the meantime, he remains in custody on $30,000 bail or $90,000 bond, prosecutors said.
Boissard’s previous arrests have mostly been for misdemeanors that carry sentences of up to a year in prison, meaning he cannot be held in custody while his case is pending under the state’s generous bail system.
Records show he was sent to court-ordered alcohol treatment facilities in Atlanta and upstate Rochester, Georgia, but was kicked out or dropped out of the programs and returned to Greenpoint.
“He needs mental health treatment,” said Rajiv Ahmed, who works at 1068 Mini Mart Deli in Greenpoint, where the manager places a metal bar behind the counter to fend off Boissard whenever he shows up.
“They need to take him to a psychiatric hospital,” Ahmed said. “He’s been arrested so many times and nothing’s changed.”
A local woman, who only wanted to be identified as Elaine, told The Post she was carrying pepper spray in her purse to scare off Boissard if he approached her or anyone else in the area.
“He harasses women, gropes women, gets into trouble,” she said. “Last year, I was waiting for the bus in front of my house and he ran and chased a woman who hid behind me.
“I stood my ground and put my hand up. He saw I wasn’t messing around and backed off. I had to tell the bus driver to let the woman back on the bus and let her off at the next stop so she could get to work.
“Justice must be served,” Elaine added. “This is not fair to local residents who are now afraid to walk down the street because of one man threatening a woman.”
