“He cannot be released again”
The violent vagrant who has terrorized a Brooklyn neighborhood for years is finally behind bars after another harassing attack on a helpless victim – and residents are breathing a sigh of relief.
“Greenpoint Thug” Christopher Boissard, 33, is being held on $30,000 bail at Rikers Island on charges of sexual abuse, sexual assault and harassment after he assaulted a woman on July 5. This is just the latest incident in a nearly decade-long reign of terror that has left the neighborhood in turmoil.
“I’m glad he’s locked up,” resident Janet Velez told the Post. “He can’t be released. The judge can’t release him. He needs to go to a mental hospital where they can give him the help he desperately needs.”
“Three weeks ago I saw him harassing a woman. He pushed her and rushed at her as if he wanted to hit her,” Velez said. “He is very violent and needs thorough psychiatric treatment.”
Locals and sources say this is Boissard’s modus operandi – the troublesome maniac is a registered Level 3 sex offender with 39 arrests since 2011, including an arrest for sexually abusing a 19-year-old woman in 2021.
And yet he has always avoided a long prison sentence – in part because court records state that he is “deaf and mute,” which made it more difficult to place him in a long-term treatment facility that could accommodate him.
“I got off the train and was on my way home and he came at me from behind,” said Maria Alejandra, who was allegedly beaten by Boissard and hospitalized on July 19, 2023.
“I fell to the ground and a woman came to help me,” she said. “He just kept walking like he always did. I felt dizzy, but I kept walking home. I called my husband to pick me up and we went to his house. We called the police, but he hid in the apartment and they couldn’t find him.”
She said she spotted the tramp across the street three weeks ago and was frozen in fear.
“I walked past there and saw him,” Alejandra said Thursday. “I just thought, ‘Oh my God,’ he’s still here! I’m scared for myself and for all the women he attacked. He needs to go to jail.”
“How could they keep releasing him and he keeps doing the same thing.”
In his most recent arrest, which led to his imprisonment, Brooklyn prosecutors alleged that Boissard came out of a store on Manhattan Avenue and groped a woman as she passed by, grabbing her breasts.
He was arrested and charged days later. This time, prosecutors asked for bail and presented the case to a grand jury, which voted to indict him. An arraignment date has not yet been set.
In the meantime, he is being held on bail of $30,000 cash or $90,000, prosecutors said.
Most of Boissard’s previous arrests were for misdemeanors that carry a maximum sentence of one year in prison, meaning the state’s generous bail system means he cannot be held while the case is pending.
According to records, he was placed in court-ordered alcohol rehabilitation programs in Atlanta, Georgia and upstate Rochester, but was either kicked out or left 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 has placed a metal bar behind the counter to push Boissard away when he shows up.
“They have to take him to the psychiatric hospital,” Ahmed said. “He has been arrested too many times and nothing is changing.”
A local woman who asked to be identified only by the name Elaine told The Post she had pepper spray in her bag to ward off Boissard if he got too close to her or anyone else in the area.
“He harasses women, he gropes women, he causes trouble,” she said. “Last year I was waiting for the bus outside my house and he chased a woman who ran away and hid behind me.”
“I stood firm, raised my hand and when he saw that I was not playing along, 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 must prevail,” Elaine added. “It’s not fair to the people in the community who are afraid to go out on the streets because of a person threatening women.”