Relatives of NYC mugger shot dead by would-be victim ‘don’t fault the shooter’
A relative of the mugger gunned down by his would-be victim in Queens this week doesn’t blame the shooter for defending himself from the unhinged assailant, he told The Post Friday.
“I don’t fault him, not really,” said Stephan Gonzalez, 35, who is related to mugger Cody Gonzalez’s adopted family by marriage.
Gonzalez, 32 — who was allegedly shot to death by Charles Foehner, 65, early Wednesday — had a lengthy history of mental illness that “the system” failed to properly treat, Stephan said.
“He had psych problems. After his mom died, he was on his own,” he said. “The city kind of just let him go. I know he was in Rikers [Island jail] and then he was in a halfway house.”
During his last encounter with Gonzalez, he appeared to be homeless and begging for cash, he said.
“The last time I saw Cody, it was on 71st and Jamaica [streets] — he was panhandling,” Stephan said. “He had his episodes.”
Trouble began when Gonzalez turned 18 years old and city and state-run mental health programs “really messed up, horribly,” he said, without elaborating.
“That’s when the system was like, ‘It’s kind of out of [our] hands. He went to Rikers a few times. He was in psych facilities.”
Gonzalez was mostly under control while on his medication — but had stopped taking it, another relative told The Daily News.
“He wasn’t a bad kid. He really wasn’t,” Gonzalez’s cousin Anthony Aguilar told the paper. “It’s ‘cause he stopped taking his damn pills. He was fine when he was taking his medication.”
Aguilar, too, said Foehner was within his rights when he opened fire in self-defense.
“If he tried to rob him, the guy’s only defending himself,” he said. “You can’t blame him for defending himself.”
Gonzalez and his sister, were adopted by Sonia Gonzalez — who spoiled them “relentlessly” when they were young, Aguilar told The Daily News.
Born Cody Baum, Gonzalez’s downward spiral began when he started spending time with troublemakers and started to have run-ins with the law, Aguilar said.
“He started hanging out with the wrong people and then he just stopped coming home,” he recounted. “[His mother] got tired of it because every time she would see him it was always with the police. So she was like, I can’t no more.”
Gonzalez flashed a sharp object that turned out to be a pen as he demanded cash and cigarettes from Charles Foehner, 65, on 82nd Avenue near Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens around 2 a.m. Wednesday, cops said.
Surveillance video of the deadly 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 with more than two dozen counts of weapon possession 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.
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.
