The Queens man caught on video gunning down a would-be mugger this week once griped to The Post about rampant crime in his neighborhood — and now faces more than two dozen gun charges for allegedly stockpiling illegal firearms in his apartment.
Charles Foehner, 65, was charged with 25 counts of criminal possession of a weapon on Thursday after cops said they found an arsenal of roughly 30 handguns, revolvers and rifles, plus ammunition, in his Kew Gardens apartment.
Foehner had been taken into custody for questioning Wednesday after he fatally shot an erratic career crook who tried to mug him blocks from his home at around 2 a.m., while appearing to threaten him, cops and police sources said.
“This isn’t our nice little neighborhood anymore,” Foehner had said in August 2020 article about a since-shuttered hotel on Queens Boulevard that locals griped had turned into “a flophouse.”
“People come down the block and key a car as they pass it. Drug deals are going on in the lobby,” Foehner, who lived near the Umbrella Hotel, said.
“Six weeks ago two people got shot and not even a week ago they came by — and I don’t know if it’s auto- or semi-auto or full-auto fire, I don’t know — but someone shot at the hotel,” he said. “This is not how I want my neighborhood.”
Police said the armory allegedly found in Foehner’s home dated back decades.
“He bought most of them years and years ago,” an NYPD spokesman said. “He’s had some since the ’90s.”
Among the firearms were 17 handguns, including the one used in the Wednesday morning shooting, cops said.
“None of the handguns were permitted,” the spokesman said. “Fourteen other guns in the house were long guns. Six of them were legally possessed.”
Foehner told investigators that he bought the pistol used in Wednesday’s shooting at a bar in the 1990s, prosecutors said at his Thursday night arraignment that got cut short over a conflict of interest with the judge.
During police questioning, Foehner also cited the city’s crime as the reason why he was armed when confronted by Gonzalez, according to Queens Assistant District Attorney Joseph Randazzo.
“Last night I was carrying a firearm because of the way that the city has been in the last three years. I read the crime stats and I see so much crime,” Foehner reportedly told investigators.
Prosecutors requested Foehner be held on $25,000 bail before the hearing took an odd turn when Judge Marty Lentz recused herself from the case since she signed off on a search warrant that led to the discovery of Foehner’s cache of weapons.
The warrant was written in relation to the fatal shooting, which Foehner is not being charged with.
Foehner will be arraigned in front of a new judge on Friday morning.
Police said Foehner was walking home around 2 a.m. Wednesday after going out for a pack of smokes when Cody Gonzalez, 32, confronted him while wielding an unknown object and demanding cash and cigarettes. Gonzalez was holding what Foehner said he believed to be a knife, but turned out to be a pen, the sources said.
Surveillance video of the encounter appears to show Foehner pointing a handgun at Gonzalez while taking steps backward while Gonzalez continues to act erratically — and suddenly lunges at Foehner.
Foehner fired the gun and struck Gonzalez, who is seen running down a driveway and collapsing.
Foehner called 911 saying he was involved in a shooting and that his firearm was in his jacket pocket. He was grilled by cops before he was charged Thursday afternoon, dodging a homicide count.
Gonzalez — who had at least 15 arrests dating back to 2004 and a record of mental illness — died in the street, where a gun was recovered, cops said. They also found a pen in his right hand, according to the sources.
A super from a nearby building on Wednesday told The Post that Foehner “didn’t want this to happen.”
“He was just trying to get home,” he said. “I saw the video and you can see he’s standing there and shows the guy the gun and is backing up. The other man takes something out and lunges at him.”
According to NYPD statistics, overall crime within the 102nd Precinct, which includes the scene of Wednesday’s shooting, is down 4.2% this year — but is up nearly 50% from two years ago.
According to the 2020 report by The Post, the Umbrella Hotel, a former Comfort Inn, opened in 2017 as an upscale hotel with luxury rentals but lapsed into a cut-rate motel that brought in unsavory clientele.
Foehner and his wife were among the locals who complained about the site. Foehner’s wife didn’t return calls on Thursday.
“One doorman saw people having sex in the doorway,” she said in 2020. “There was a condom outside for a week. I called 311 about broken glass and garbage outside the hotel, and three weeks later I’m told there is no violation.”
Additional reporting by Joe Marino and Craig McCarthy
