A homeowner spooked off a wannabe car burglar with his gun during a home invasion in Queens early Tuesday morning.
Moshe Borukh, 35, heard commotion around the window of his Jamaica Estates home around 2:40 a.m., after getting a drink of water, and discovered a thief was inside while his wife and three young kids were asleep, he recalled to The Post.
The bungling thief had been spotted on home security cameras rummaging through the kitchen with a phone flashlight, searching for the key fob to Borukh’s Bentley, while two other burglars waited outside, according to footage obtained by The Post.
Borukh, who took his gun with him to check out the noise, “locked eyes” with the burglar and drew his Sig Sauer P365.
“I always take the gun with me, because who knows. Then I hear actual window breaking, the glass breaking. Something’s going on. I come downstairs, point the gun at him, and I’m like, ‘I have a gun. Don’t move’,” he said of the harrowing moment.
After seeing Borukh, the invader quickly scurried out the window and abandoned the botched burglary.
“It was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. You know, I was prepared for it, just because I have a family. I have to protect my castle, and so by any means necessary,” Borukh said.
“So I did what I had to do. I pointed the gun at him, and I was prepared to shoot him,” he added, noting he has a license to conceal carry.
“There was the Old Testament right next to where the guy came in from, on the table. So I don’t know if that Bible was protecting him or protecting me. Either way, it worked out for the best,” he said.
After calling the police, deputies were dispatched to another car burglary roughly six blocks away, according to Borukh.
Officers told the brave homeowner that two other vehicles in the area had been stolen that night and that the robbers responsible for breaking into his home likely had a “quota” for the number of cars they had to steal.
Borukh knew the robbers were trying to swipe his Bentley from security footage, which showed them fumbling around with his car outside.
“They were under my car trying to do something, and they couldn’t open it. They were messing around with something, trying to open and they couldn’t,” he said.
He believes the increase in robberies in the tree-lined Queens area is due to its proximity to highways, which allow car thieves to quickly speed away out of sight.
“There are no consequences, even if, when they are caught, there’s still no consequences — catch and release. And it’s, you know, it’s very minor in prison, time, even no prison at all,” Borukh said.
Borukh said his wife is still a little “anxious” and “nervous,” and that though his youngest, at just 4 years old, was spared the details, his other kids “know exactly what’s going on.”
He also encouraged other homeowners to be aware of their right to own a gun.
“I’m just trying to raise awareness for the community, because they have rights they don’t realize they have,” Borukh maintained.
“And having a gun is the most you know, it’s the most important thing, in my opinion, right now, the government’s not gonna help us, the mayor’s not gonna help us. Governor’s not gonna help us,” he said.
“But the laws are still in place to help us. Just people need to know what those laws are.”
