The lengths to which people will go in the red-hot New York City real estate market are many.

All-cash deals. Bid-’em-up scrambles among buyers. Carefully crafted portfolios proving financial viability to get into the city’s coveted prewar apartment buildings.

And then there’s Blanche O’Neal, who is charged with stealing a townhouse in Brooklyn.

A four-story townhouse.

And that’s not all. O’Neal is a police officer.

In an arraignment on Monday, O’Neal, 45, was charged with, among other things, grand larceny and perjury for allegedly forging the deed to a dead neighbor’s property and naming herself as the owner.

“This defendant allegedly stole a house from its rightful owner with the stroke of a pen, apparently hoping no one would notice,” Brooklyn District Attorney Ken Thompson said in a statement. “But her brazen actions have unraveled and she will now be held accountable.

“That she is a veteran NYPD officer makes this alleged crime all the more disturbing.”

Thomson said that in 2012 O’Neal filed a deed that stated that she bought the property, 23A Vernon Avenue, from the nephew of the homeowner, Lillian Hudson, who had died in 1993. The nephew and three other relatives inherited the property, though it sat vacant for many years.

The defendant, according to the indictment, falsely indicated in her filings with the city that she bought the property for $10,000 from the nephew and the deed was purportedly signed by him.

The scheme begun to unravel last year when the nephew and the other three heirs to the house tried to sell it, Thompson said. That is when they discovered the 2012 deed allegedly forged by the defendant.

‘Neal’s lawyer, Edward Harold King, pleaded not guilty on her behalf at her arraignment in Brooklyn Supreme Court, reported the New York Post newspaper.

“Bottom line is, she is not guilty,” King told reporters outside the courtroom. “And she’s going to vigorously defend the case.”

O’Neal has been a cop for 12 years and was most recently assigned to the 83rd Precinct in nearby Bushwick. According to the Gothamist news website, an NYPD spokesperson said she has been suspended without pay. —

USA Today