Deepa Roy and Victor Quimis

Introduction

Deepa V. Roy, 69, of Manhattan, and Victor Quimis, 40, of Queens, are accused of stealing the Kew Gardens Hills home of Renuka Bherwani — an 88-year-old widow with dementia who was in hospice care — by forging her signature on a deed that transferred the property to the two of them for free. They were indicted in August 2025 in the first case ever brought under New York State’s deed theft law, which criminalized the conduct and gave the Attorney General original jurisdiction to prosecute it, and both have pleaded not guilty. In September 2026 the alleged partners turned on each other: Roy sued Quimis, claiming he used the same playbook to steal her own $817,000 home.

Background Information

Bherwani bought the Kew Gardens Hills house in 1986 with her husband Mohan and lived there for nearly four decades; she began receiving in-home health care in 2020 as dementia took hold, and in March 2021 she granted her son Kamal Bherwani and daughter-in-law Sabita full power of attorney over her affairs. Around the time Mohan died in 2022, Roy began visiting the home, telling the health aides she was one of Mrs. Bherwani’s friends, and in the summer of 2024 she tried to persuade the aides to let her move into a spare room — a request Kamal and Sabita rejected. The October 2024 deed at the center of the case was created while Mrs. Bherwani was in hospice and suffering from dementia, according to officials and her family.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation

Charged; not adjudicated. Roy and Quimis have been indicted and have pleaded not guilty; the allegations against them — like the claims in Roy’s civil lawsuit against Quimis — have not been tested at trial, and the presumption of innocence applies. Quimis’s attorneys did not respond to requests for comment; Roy’s criminal attorney says she “continues to vigorously fight and dispute the allegations against her.”

According to the Attorney General’s investigation, Roy and Quimis forged Mrs. Bherwani’s signature on an October 2024 deed that transferred her home to the two of them for free, notarized with a forged signature and an incorrectly dated stamp from a real Nassau County notary, and used her forged signature again on supporting paperwork including a city water-and-sewer registration. In December 2024 a second forged deed moved the property into Hunter Studios & Developer Corp., a corporation Quimis owned, and Quimis used it to take out a $552,500 mortgage — after paying off the home’s remaining mortgage and liens, he allegedly laundered the remaining $312,037.57 through the corporation’s accounts for his personal benefit, while Roy received at least $15,000 by bank check with the memo line “Per agreement”. The family discovered the theft that December, when Kamal and Sabita Bherwani, sorting mail at the house where Mrs. Bherwani still lived, found a city Department of Environmental Protection letter congratulating Quimis on becoming the “new owner,” and reported it to the Attorney General’s office. Mrs. Bherwani died in June 2025 at 88, two months before the case was announced.

Quimis was arrested on August 4, 2025, and charged with grand larceny, offering a false instrument for filing, residential mortgage fraud, money laundering, criminal possession of a forged instrument and scheme to defraud; Roy faced the same charges and remained at large when Attorney General Letitia James announced the prosecutions on the steps of the Queens criminal courthouse on August 7. The case was the first brought under the state’s new deed theft law, and if convicted the two face a maximum sentence of eight and one-third to 25 years in prison. Roy has since been arraigned alongside Quimis, and both have pleaded not guilty to a slew of deed-theft-related charges.

Public Reaction and Consequences

Attorney General Letitia James said Roy and Quimis “preyed on an elderly widow in hospice to steal the home she owned for nearly 40 years,” and pledged to “ensure this home is returned to the Bherwani family.” Kamal Bherwani told Eyewitness News: “Losing a mother to failing health is devastating enough, trying to protect her home from fraudsters during this time has made that pain and sadness far more difficult to bear.” State legislators who sponsored the statute framed the indictments as its proof of concept: Senator Zellnor Myrie called deed theft “a cruel and insidious scam” that disproportionately harms older, lower-income and Black and brown homeowners. The case drew wide New York coverage as a milestone — the first time the year-old law had been used against alleged deed thieves, who officials said had long escaped justice through vague statutes.

Current Status

The criminal case is ongoing: both defendants have pleaded not guilty, and they are due back in court on November 4, 2026, according to the state Attorney General’s office. In September 2026 the relationship between the two alleged co-conspirators collapsed into litigation, when Roy sued Quimis in Queens Supreme Court, claiming that after her husband Abner Richard Siegel died in November 2023, Quimis took “predatory advantage of [an] elderly, grieving widow” and created two bogus deeds that made him the owner of her Flushing investment property, valued at $817,000. Her complaint says the fake documents carried a stamp from a made-up notary, “Shereece Rthel Clarke,” and that Quimis replaced the squatters he removed with his own family, stripped the house of a $12,000 boiler and appliances, and gutted a Dodge Ram limousine that belonged to her late husband’s father; she seeks at least $1 million in damages. Quimis and his wife did not respond to the Post’s request for comment on the lawsuit.

Impact on Their Career/Life

Both now face the first test of New York’s deed-theft statute, with prison terms of up to 25 years at stake, while fighting the case on opposite sides of new litigation — Roy as both a criminal defendant and a plaintiff suing her alleged accomplice. Kamal Bherwani, who has also taken civil action against both over his mother’s home, dismissed Roy’s claim that she was duped: “The person who brought Victor [Quimis] into the situation was Deepa [Roy] . . . Victor is an expert in doing this — he may have taken on some aspects of the fraud, but there’s no doubt she’s the one who sourced my mother.” Roy’s criminal attorney, Jeremy Saland, said she “continues to vigorously fight and dispute the allegations against her,” and her civil attorney, Christopher Anderson, insisted “Ms. Roy is not a perpetrator of deed theft; she is its primary victim.”

Sources

New York Post, “NYC woman accused of deed theft claims co-conspirator stole her own home: lawsuit,” October 17, 2026 — source
@nypost, trigger post announcing the lawsuit story, October 17, 2026 — source
New York Attorney General, “Attorney General James Announces First Indictments Under New Deed Theft Law,” August 7, 2025 — source
ABC7 Eyewitness News, “2 in Queens are first to be prosecuted under New York’s new deed theft law,” August 7, 2025 — source
Queens Eagle, “Two charged for stealing Kew Gardens Hills home from dying woman,” August 8, 2025 — source