A Queens woman who allegedly spent months harassing her neighbor and landlord was arrested Saturday for stabbing her fellow tenant, police and witnesses told The Post.
The alleged attacker and the victim each rented separate units in the multi-family home in South Ozone Park, where the landlord lived downstairs.
The bloody assault unfolded just before 8 a.m. when Najia M. Vaughn allegedly knocked on her neighbor’s door, began arguing with the woman inside, then pulled out a knife and cut the 31-year-old victim on the forehead, chest and leg, residents and authorities said.
Vaughn, 28, fled and was arrested about a block away, police said. She was charged with felony assault and criminal possession of a weapon.
The accused attacker, who receives rental assistance from the city, moved into the 127th Street home in May, and was referred to the property by the city’s Human Resources Administration, said her terrified landlord, who did not want to be named.
The victim was taken to Jamaica Medical Center, where she was hospitalized, the NYPD said.
“Since she [Vaughn] is here…she has been nothing but trouble,” the landlord fumed to The Post.
The unhinged woman’s $1,945 rent for the one-bedroom apartment was paid by CityFHEPS, a rental assistance program, the landlord said.
The woman’s erratic behavior had frightened residents for months, and the stabbing is the latest in an apparent laundry list of disturbing behavior.
The homeowner, who lives downstairs with her 7-year-old daughter and sister, claims Vaughn, who lives upstairs, has tried to set the house on fire; flooded the landlord’s apartment and keyed her car; repeatedly banged on the landlord’s and the victim’s doors; and even jumped out of her own second-floor apartment.
“The city should evaluate these people very, very carefully before they put them in private houses. They are putting the owner’s life in danger, they are putting the tenant’s life in danger, they are putting the property in danger,” the landlord said, adding, “I have to now spend so much money, I don’t know what damage she did in her apartment. I am very very scared. I am scared to leave my house by itself, that she do something.”
The landlord said she heard banging on her door at 6:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, but did not answer. On Saturday morning, she was saying her prayers when she heard screaming.
“I thought she was fighting with her boyfriend, because that’s what she normally do, then I hear the other girl screaming. I text her to see if she’s ok, she said, ‘I am stabbed.’ I said I’m going to call the police. She says she called the police.”
The landlord said she saw her victimized tenant race down the steps and outside the building, “blood all over her face.”
The landlord surmised the unsuspecting victim was attacked after answering the front door thinking it was the police, only to realize it was the twisted tenant, who had already been knocking on her neighbor’s door earlier in the morning.
“She was caught off-guard. She just came out of the bathroom, she had a robe on. She thought it was the police who was knocking on her door. She had called the police because [Vaughn] was bothering her,” the landlord said.
Police have come to the house at least once a week for the last three months, a next door neighbor said, while a resident across the street said cops have been frequent visitors to the troubled home.
The NYPD did not immediately have information regarding past trouble with Vaughn at the building. Victim and attacker are “known to each other,” an NYPD spokesperson said.
