A man with untreated severe mental illness who Greenpoint residents say has been pushing, groping and harassing people in the community for years pleaded not guilty to persistent sexual abuse and other sex crimes in Kings County Supreme Court on Thursday.
Christopher Boissard, 33, is accused of groping a woman’s breasts on Manhattan Avenue last month, according to a criminal complaint. Prosecutors say the forcible touching occurred in the middle of the afternoon and that it caused the woman to become “alarmed and annoyed.”
The charges follow years of complaints from fellow residents who have said they feel unsafe walking around the Brooklyn neighborhood’s northern end because they fear Boissard will attack them. But some Greenpointers have said they want the man to receive behavioral health treatment, not languish behind bars. The neighborhood dispute underscores tensions that New Yorkers are grappling with as they share public spaces with people with serious mental illness who have not received lasting support from the systems that are supposed to help them.
On Thursday morning, Boissard’s mother watched quietly from the gallery, holding a notebook as officers escorted her son into the 20th-floor courtroom. Boissard is deaf, and court staff uncuffed his wrists so that he could use his hands to communicate with an American Sign Language interpreter.
Boissard’s attorney, Johnny Castellanos with the nonprofit Brooklyn Defenders, asked Justice Rhonda Tomlinson to release his client from jail with an ankle monitor, or lower his $30,000 cash bail, so that Boissard could receive treatment for disabilities that Castellanos specified to the judge in private, citing privacy concerns.
The attorney said Boissard hadn’t been able to get the services he needs on Rikers Island because an ASL interpreter wasn’t available to accompany him. Boissard’s social worker told the judge that she’s faced similar challenges with other deaf people incarcerated at Rikers.
The city’s Department of Correction did not immediately respond to questions about the availability of interpreters for deaf people in the jails.
Tomlinson denied the request to release Boissard while his case is pending. The judge noted that he is a registered sex offender with an “extensive” history and “countless” contempt convictions for not following court orders in the past. She said Boissard should get treatment in jail, and agreed to sign paperwork requesting an interpreter.
When officers began to re-cuff Boissard’s wrists, he kept signing with one hand and moaned. He continued to utter something indiscernible as officers walked him out of the courtroom.
Boissard faces one count of forcible touching, one count of third-degree sexual abuse and one count of persistent sexual abuse, a class E felony that prosecutors can charge when someone has been convicted of certain sex crimes in the past 10 years. The criminal complaint cites a 2019 guilty plea for a sexual abuse charge and a 2022 guilty plea for a forcible touching charge.
Boissard’s attorney and mother both declined to comment after the arraignment. Last summer, Boissard’s mother told Gothamist that she was worried about her son’s safety, both in the community and on Rikers. She said Boissard had struggled with his mental health since his childhood, when his brother died unexpectedly.
The Brooklyn district attorney’s office also declined to comment but previously told Gothamist that it had worked “diligently to provide this defendant with the mental health services and supportive resources necessary to address his conduct and to keep the people of Greenpoint safe.”
“If these interventions are unsuccessful, we are prepared to go to trial and request jail time upon conviction to protect the community,” spokesperson Oren Yaniv said last year.