Property manager gets 3 years for stealing from elderly renters

BRIDGEPORT - A local property manager, who fleeced more than a dozen elderly residents out of their rent checks, was sentenced Friday to three years in prison.

“I want to apologize to the victims, I’m truly sorry but I was using cocaine,” Antonio Alexander told Superior Court Judge Robert Devlin. “I didn’t use the money to go on lavish vacations.”

But the judge told Alexander his actions could have had serious consequences to many elderly people.

“By misappropriating their rent money you could have caused them to be evicted which would have been a very traumatic experience for elderly people who are very vulnerable,” the judge.

For the convictions of first-degree larceny and second-degree forgery, the judge sentenced the 42-year-old Hartford man to eight years, suspended after he serves three years in prison and followed by five years’ probation.

Devlin also ordered Alexander to repay the $50,920 he stole in rent checks but not by working in the property management profession.

“You are going to have to roll up your sleeves and work with your hands to repay this money,” the judge added.

Alexander worked as the property manager for Beacon Communications which owns an apartment complex for the elderly on North Avenue here.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney David Applegate said Beacon officials noticed that a number of its renters were behind in their rent, totaling more than $50,000.

When the officials contacted the residents, each said they had been paying their rent and had been instructed by Alexander to pay him with bank checks, leaving the payee line blank, the prosecutor said.

Applegate said Alexander, who moved to Florida, subsequently admitted he had been writing his name on the bank checks and cashing them and using the money for his own purposes.

Kriste Rizzo, regional director for Beacon, said the company did not charge the residents for the stolen checks.

Alexander’s lawyer, John Bowdren, told the judge his client has two children and was just a few credits shy of obtaining a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice when he was arrested.