A homeless man was charged yesterday with letting his dog run amok after a pack of five snarling canines mauled two people on the Rockaway boardwalk, critically injuring an elderly man.
Wilfredo Velez, 46, was charged with failure to control his dog and having an unlicensed animal in the horrific attack Wednesday at Beach 70th Street, cops said.
Velez, on probation until June 16 for a drug-sale conviction, was held on $2,500 bail last night by Queens Criminal Court Judge Stephen Knopf.
Velez told cops one of the dogs, Boobie, lived with him for a year in a tentlike shack – adorned with an American flag and a Santa Claus figure – he set up at Beach 75th Street and Rockaway Boulevard.
He said he had fed two other dogs involved in the attack – both Rottweilers – for five or six years and had given them names.
After Assistant District Attorney Anthony Luis said the charges might be upgraded to a felony, Velez’s lawyer, Lisa Salzman, snapped, “That’s ridiculous. If he fed two of the dogs, that’s not a crime.”
The most seriously injured victim, Lev Liberman, 74, was in critical condition at Jamaica Hospital with serious bites to his head, face, body, hands and legs. However, he did not lose an eye, as was earlier reported.
His next-door neighbor, Saina Zitser, said Liberman is a retired engineer who has a daughter who lives in Brooklyn and a brother who lives in Israel.
“He’s a good man, a fine man,” she said. “It’s such a tragedy – too much tragedy for the man.”
Zitser said her little dachshund, Susha, knew something was wrong because it ran to Liberman’s door yelping after he was mauled.
The second victim, Marlene Fils-Aime, 51, said she was enjoying a walk when she was attacked.
She is expected to be released from the hospital today. Additional reporting by Murray Weiss, Ikimulisa Sockwell-Mason and Douglas Wight