A Manhattan woman charged in an alleged deed-theft plot involving the Queens home of a dying widow is now accusing her purported partner in the scheme of taking her property as well.
Deepa V. Roy, 69, and Victor Quimis, 40, were indicted in August 2025 on deed-theft charges. Prosecutors say the pair worked together to take control of Renuka Bherwani’s Kew Gardens Hills house while the 88-year-old woman was receiving hospice care.
In a lawsuit filed recently, Roy alleges that Quimis engineered an “egregious deed theft scheme” to seize the Flushing home she owned with her late husband. She is seeking at least $1 million for the alleged deed theft, unpaid rent and the loss of personal property.
Deed theft, which New York officials have pledged to combat as reported cases increase, typically involves forged paperwork, false statements or other deception used to unlawfully transfer ownership of a home.
According to a complaint filed Sept. 16 in Queens Supreme Court, Roy turned to Quimis after her husband, Abner Richard Siegel, died in November 2023. She allegedly asked him to help evict squatters from the Queens property that the couple had owned together.
Instead, Roy claims, Quimis exploited her as an elderly woman grieving her husband and prepared two bargain-and-sale deeds that eventually placed the approximately $817,000 property in his name.
The documents were allegedly notarized by a fictitious official identified as “Shereece Rthel Clarke.” The paperwork also reportedly carried the typo-filled stamp, “State od [sic] New York.”
Roy says the final fraudulent deed was dated Jan. 22, 2024.
Quimis eventually removed the squatters in June 2025, but Roy alleges that he then moved his own relatives into the house. The complaint says Quimis, his wife Margot, his mother-in-law and their two children have occupied the investment property without paying rent.
Roy also accuses Quimis of taking or damaging items belonging to her, including a boiler worth about $12,000 that was installed in 2015, large household appliances and antique furniture. She further claims he stripped and remodeled a Golden Dodge Ram limousine that had belonged to Siegel’s father.
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“Ms. Roy is not a perpetrator of deed theft; she is its primary victim,” Christopher Anderson, her attorney in the civil lawsuit, told The Post. “Rather than remaining silent, Ms. Roy has taken aggressive, proactive legal action to hold Mr. Quimis accountable.” Quimis and his wife did not respond to requests for comment.
The criminal investigation and prosecution of Roy and Quimis remain active, according to the New York state attorney general’s office. The defendants are scheduled to return to court Nov. 4.
Both have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges connected to the alleged deed theft. Authorities said the case marked the first prosecution brought under New York’s law specifically criminalizing deed theft.
Officials and Bherwani’s relatives allege that Roy and Quimis produced a fraudulent deed dated Oct. 13, 2024, while Bherwani was in hospice care and suffering from dementia. She died at age 88 in June 2025.
Bherwani’s son, Kamal Bherwani, who served as an executive in the administrations of former New York City mayors Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, has filed a separate civil lawsuit against Roy and Quimis.
He has rejected Roy’s portrayal of herself as an innocent target and believes she is attempting to distance herself from the allegations involving his mother.
“It’s just ironic that she’s making that statement a few weeks before a criminal trial,” Kamal Bherwani told The Post. He alleged that Roy brought Quimis into the matter, adding that Quimis “is an expert in doing this” and that Roy was the person who identified his mother as a potential target.
Jeremy Saland, who represents Roy in the criminal case, said his client “continues to vigorously fight and dispute the allegations against her.”
He argued that both women could have been victimized, saying, “It’s important to recognize that two unfortunate realities can be true: Renuka Bherwani may very well have been the victim of Mr. Quimis, but so was Deepa Roy.”
Attorneys representing Quimis in the criminal proceedings did not respond to requests for comment.
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