The Brooklyn resident who died attempting to rescue his pets from his flooded basement is the infamous “Torah Man” – who as soon as turned heads for sporting a weird outfit made fully of spiritual texts to court docket, The Publish has discovered.
Aaron Akaberi, 39 — who donned the unusual garb whereas showing in Brooklyn Supreme Court docket on drug prices in 2016 — died a hero Thursday whereas attempting to save lots of his canine and cats from his storm-soaked Flatbush dwelling, neighbors mentioned.
“He had his no matter repute, however he additionally saved his canine, that’s how he died,” neighbor Julia Tall, 20, instructed The Publish Friday.
“He had a coronary heart.”
Neighbors remembered Akaberi as an eccentric man and “good friend of the neighborhood” who solely moved into the Kingston Avenue basement dwelling final month — after initially residing in a tent behind the constructing over the summer season.
“He’s been on this neighborhood since I’ve been youthful,” mentioned one in every of Akaberi’s associates, who solely recognized himself as Joe. “He was simply associates with people who I knew. When he first got here to Crown Heights, no one was saying unhealthy issues about him.”
However now, “there’s lots of people saying all types of issues” about Akaberi, his pal mentioned.
Akaberi, partially, bought folks speaking about him, due to his stunt a decade in the past, through which he wore his outlandish get-up to Brooklyn court docket.
It included a “shirt” customary from newsprint pages lined within the holy Hebrew writings of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson – and a hat produced from a print-out of the unique seven commandments given to Noah.
Akaberi wore the outlandish outfit as obvious retaliation as a result of he was banned from studying Talmudic quotations at a pre-trial listening to.
“The Choose wouldn’t let me learn my ‘Chayenu’ in court docket, so I made a decision to put on it,” a defiant Akaberi, who was 30 on the time, mentioned within the downtown Brooklyn courthouse.
The outfit, apparently, wasn’t an act, as he was was well-known within the space for his spiritual religion.
“He was a religious Jew,” Joe mentioned. “He didn’t wish to depart the world . . . He didn’t wish to depart as a result of he was dedicated to the faith and the Rabbi.”
Joe described his good friend as ba’al teshuva – which refers to secular Jews who return to non secular Judaism.
“Me and him, we might talk about it – like, he would do as greatest he can to do ethical issues, the ethical mitzvot, the issues which might be ethical commandments,” Joe mentioned. “He was Chabad.”
“He did as greatest he can,” the good friend added. “If anyone instructed him a Jewish regulation, he would look it up and discover out as quick as he can to maintain it.”
On Friday afternoon, no less than 4 chickens wandered round Akaberi’s yard, and a useless rooster could possibly be seen hanging from the basement ceiling.
He introduced the chickens dwelling simply after Yom Kippur, his good friend mentioned.
As torrential rains pounded the Huge Apple Thursday, Akaberi initially made it out of the basement clutching his mastiff Luna and cat Sparky, however made a beeline again inside to rescue his bully combine, Yala, and cat, Chuki.
His neighbors had warned him that it was too dangerous to return inside – pleas that he ignored, they mentioned.
“I used to be like ‘Don’t go, Aaron! You saved one of many canine already. Depart, don’t return down there,’ and he pushed me out the best way and went down there,” a feminine neighbor mentioned.
“I don’t see him arising,” she recalled. “When he went down there, I didn’t see him come out [from the back] and I carry up the window and say ‘Aaron, Aaron?’ and I don’t see him down there. I assumed he might need got here out the again, however he didn’t, he was trapped down there.”
Video captured by a passerby confirmed the FDNY and members of the scuba crew carrying the sufferer’s limp physique out of the residence constructing whereas they had been nonetheless wading by ankle-high water on the street.
About half-hour after Akaberi was pulled from the flooded basement, Juan Carlos Montoya Hernandez, 43, was additionally discovered unresponsive inside a flooded boiler room on West a hundred and seventy fifth Road in Washington Heights, police mentioned.
Montoya Hernandez did odd jobs for the constructing tremendous, a constructing tenant mentioned Friday.
“There was a unfastened wire within the water and he was electrocuted,” the tenant mentioned. “I really feel horrible. We by no means had any unwell want in direction of him. We by no means wished something unhealthy to occur to him.”
When reached by The Publish, the tremendous, Milton Mora, mentioned Montoya Hernandez “was not presupposed to be there.”
“I went to the boiler room. The water was as much as my knees,” he recalled. “He was useless already after I walked in. I attempted to drag him out. I bought electrocuted, too. I’m fortunate I’m alive….I don’t understand how.”
“He was a good friend of mine,” Mora added. “I liked him like a brother. He was like household to me. He was a very good particular person. Everyone liked him. He helped all people.”
