Thread: Fiend lived on charity| Luisa Ordonez, Juan Barreno, Valerio Santos, Agustin Lopez+

‘Fiend’ lived on victims’ charity

https://nypost.com/2010/02/03/fiend-...ctims-charity/

Summary:
February 3, 2010

GRIM TOLL: Miguel Chan and his son Josias (above) survived the blaze. Wife Luisa Ordoñez died, as did Juan Barreno, Valerio Santos, Agustin Lopez and Antonio Mendoza.Angel Chevrestt

They welcomed him with open arms — and he burned them out of house and home, police said.

The man charged with setting the horrible fire that killed five people in a Brooklyn building was surviving on the kindness of strangers.

Two months ago, Daniel Ignacio, 27, showed up on a Bensonhurst doorstep desperate for a place to live. He, like most of the people that filled two floors of an 86th Street building, was from Guatemala — having recently sneaked into the United States for a second time.

But he wasn’t like the rest of them. He drank. He rarely went to church. He usually kept to himself. Still, the residents didn’t hesitate to help him rent a room in the crowded boarding house.

Ignacio toiled as a day laborer, working construction jobs for $8 an hour.

The money was no less than anyone else was earning, but Ignacio grew frustrated with his circumstances and missed his family back home, according to cops who took his confession.

He drowned his sorrows in booze, and in a drunken stupor ignited the blaze that killed five people, including the mother of two small children.

“He set the fire, then went upstairs and went to bed,” a police source said.

At first, residents thought their aloof neighbor had earned his keep when he helped rescue a 2-year-old boy from the flames.

The boy’s father, Miguel Chan, at a church on Monday, heaped praise on Ignacio and others who helped bring the boy out of the building. “I wouldn’t have him in my arms right now” had it not been for their heroism, Chan said.

Ignacio even appeared humble when others patted him on the back—until the truth came out.

Cops said it wasn’t the first time Ignacio grew impatient with trying to make an honest living.

In January 2002, he was arrested for burglary after a homeowner saw a man climbing out of a Brooklyn apartment window. Cops caught Ignacio on the roof of the building with a leather purse, a comb and a pen from the apartment.

He served 10 months in prison and was deported to Guatemala. Cops said he re-entered the United States illegally via Mexico about a year ago.