Much-loved overdose victim targeted after death by Ettore Mazzei Staten Island crime empire

The nefarious empire of drug dealing, extortion and fraud led by high-profile Staten Island businessman Ettore Mazzei took a profound human toll on the community — including one local woman he victimized even after her death.

Kristen Maher was the former girlfriend of Rudy Santana, 42, who was indicted alongside Mazzei last Wednesday for obtaining her bank account information and then fraudulently transferring $30,000 out of the account, prosecutors said. The theft, prosecutors said, began five months after she died of a drug overdose in November 2022 at age 38.

“People take advantage of people all the time. She was an easy target and they knew it,” said a longtime neighbor of Maher. “It’s sad. The whole thing is just sad.”

Mazzei, 61, and Santana were indicted on charges of grand larceny, identity theft and unlawful possession of personal identification for the scheme. The pair have also been accused of making credit card purchases, falsely reporting them as fraudulent and then receiving reimbursement from the credit card companies, court records show.

Maher was one of many victims caught in Mazzei’s labyrinth of crime, prosecutors said. Mazzei, described by Staten Island District Attorney Michael McMahon as a “poison purveyor,” is also accused of selling 20 grams of heroin, 461 grams of cocaine, and 140 Suboxone strips, which are used to treat opioid addiction, to undercover cops over a 14-month period beginning in March 2023.

Authorities have linked Mazzei to numerous overdoses on Staten Island dating back a number of years, prosecutors said in court. It was not clear if they counted Maher’s overdose death among them.

In Mazzei’s self-published book, “It’s Your Right to Be Fit, Sexed, & Happy … So Claim It!” he dedicates an entire chapter to addiction.

“The fact is that some people will never handle their addictions in this lifetime,” Mazzei wrote. “Many die sad lives, addicted. I know good people with strong wills that are getting their a– kicked with their addictions.”

Maher was remembered by friends and neighbors as a bright, beautiful young woman whose life took a turn after her parents’ divorce and her younger brother’s death.

“I miss her so much. She was like the daughter I never had. She was a good person. Not a mean, nasty bone in her body,” recalled a family friend, who often took Maher in when she clashed with family, “She was so smart. One of the smartest girls I’ve ever seen. And what a memory on her.”

“When she was 3, 4 years old she was already reading. She was a beautiful, smart girl. She really was,” said a 55-year-old woman who lives on Livermore Ave., the street where Maher was raised in Westerleigh, S.I. “I don’t know how to say it, everything just didn’t go her way.”

Maher studied to become a registered nurse and held a job at Staten Island University Hospital for some time, the friend said.

“Once she became addicted, that was it,” the friend recalled. “She never had another job after that.”

Friends said her family was troubled.

Each member of the Maher family died in a span of roughly two-and-a-half years, the friend said. Maher’s mother died first, followed by her younger brother Billy and then her father, who died in heart surgery less than a year before Maher overdosed.

“She missed her brother. That really got her upset,” the family friend said.

Despite several attempts to overcome her addiction in rehab, Maher continued to relapse, the friend said.

“She looked sad. She just looked sad. She was frail,” the neighbor said of Maher in the months leading up to her death. “You absolutely knew. We all knew she was on drugs.”

Maher had several run-ins with the law, including an arrest in 2012 for burglary, forgery of prescriptions and illegally obtaining various pills including oxycodone, Xanax and valium, cops said. In 2018, she was busted for criminal possession of a controlled substance.

Adding to her issues, friends and neighbors said, was her relationship with Santana. Maher and Santana had a tumultuous on-again, off-again relationship that lasted about five years, according to the family friend and neighbors.

Chaos was the norm on Livermore Ave. while Santana lived with Maher in her childhood home after her mother and father died, said one neighbor.

“The fights that used to go on out here were ridiculous. Her, him, other people that came,” the neighbor said. “I mean the police had to have been totally disgusted with coming here. [Cops were here] a lot, a lot. Disputes, arguing, it was nonstop.”

In the year before her death, between Nov. 11, 2021, and Nov. 11, 2022, there were 16 calls to 911 for the Livermore Ave. home. Those calls include larceny in progress, other crimes in progress, disputes and an ambulance case, cops said.

Maher’s family home turned into a squatter destination both before and after she died, the neighbor said. The house was raided and boarded up by authorities in early April.

“There was a whole group of them, men and women, in and out. It was ridiculous. And nothing could be done about it,” said the neighbor.

Police arrested four people during the April 3 raid. They were each hit with charges including weapons possession and criminal use of drug paraphernalia, cops said.

Santana was released without bail at his Wednesday arraignment in Staten Island Criminal Court. He has 22 prior arrests on his record, cops said. In 2012, he was sentenced to three years’ probation and restitution after pleading guilty to petty larceny, according to a spokesman for the Nassau County district attorney’s office.

Mazzei is being held at Rikers Island, unable to post the $3 million cash bail set by Judge Mario Mattei. “Mazzei built a labyrinth of crime including drug dealing, extortion and fraud against numerous government programs including COVID-19 aid, housing support, food stamps and other financial assistance,” DA McMahon said last week. “He is a successful businessman for sure — a crooked, evil businessman … The breadth of his criminal activity is truly mind-boggling.”

When asked what he’d like to see happen to the Mazzei and Santana now that they have been charged, the family friend said, “I put it in the hands of Our Lord.”

Santana’s lawyer did not immediately respond to an inquiry about the case.

Maher’s neighbor said she was surprised to hear of Santana’s release without bail

“Some people, they have no morals and they don’t have any conscience. They’ll just do whatever they can to make a dollar,” the 55-year-old woman said. “I would like nothing more than to see justice for [Maher’s] family.”