The accused scooter-riding madman who allegedly shot four people in a two borough-spree over the weekend appeared to nod off during his first court appearance Monday — as his boss revealed he had a history of bizarre comments, including claiming a “chip” was implanted in his head and that “people were after him.”
Thomas Abreu, 25, continued to make strange statements — — saying unknown entities wanted him dead — as he attended his Queens Criminal Court arraignment from his hospital bed, dozing off at times and forcing the judge to stop and make sure he was OK.
“Are you coherent enough to follow these proceedings today?” Judge Scott Dunn asked the accused killer. “You keep closing your eyes — are you alert enough to go forward?”
But things weren’t much better for the visibly disoriented Abreu when he managed to stay awake during the virtual hearing.
“What happens is I think they wanted to kill me or murder me,” Abreu told a bewildered court through a Spanish interpreter. “Everyone says I’m innocent. That’s the best problem there is.”
The suspected madman didn’t say who, exactly, thought he was innocent before the judge remanded him into custody and ordered a psych evaluation.
Cops and prosecutors say Abreu shot four people in the span of about 12 minutes as he cruised through Brooklyn and Queens on Saturday morning. One of his victims died that day, and another was clinging to life on Monday, police said.
Police sources have described Abreu as “extremely emotionally disturbed” — a sentiment his boss of five years, Jose Rodriguez, seemed to echo when he spoke to The Post on Monday.
Abreu called out Saturday from his job as a deliveryman at Sazon Perez, a Dominican restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, because “people were after him,” Rodriguez said.
He’d also said things in the past that Rodriguez later relayed to Abreu’s family because they were so worrisome — such as when Abreu told him that Alexa, Amazon’s virtual assistant, knew what his boss would say before he said it.
He also claimed that Rodriguez “put a chip in his head,” along with the other employees.
“I loved him like a son,” Rodriguez said. “He showed up on-time and he was good … he was a big kid and he never got violent. It was never any problems like that. But he said some strange things … he wasn’t good in his head.”
Queens Assistant District Attorney Jonathan Selkowe listed more of Abreu’s bizarre statements — this time allegedly made to the cops after his arrest — in court on Monday.
“The Russians are after me, the Chinese are after me, the Italians are after me, Africa is after me,” Abreu told detectives Sunday, according to Selkowe.
“You are all wearing earpieces,” Abreu allegedly said while in custody. “I left my home on Elton St. I used a scooter. I was jumped before and someone dropped a bag. And when I looked, there was a gun and I took it and kept it since.”
“They were after me,” Abreu allegedly said. “They are bad people.”
Selkowe added that the three survivors shot during the spree needed surgery to save them. And another person — who was targeted but not hit by the rampaging food delivery man — felt a bullet whisk past his face.
“That’s how close he came to being another one of the defendant’s homicide victims,” Selkowe told the court.
Abreu’s attorney, Queens defender Jonathan Latimer, reserved a bail application, saying he had spent less than an hour at the hospital with his client, who indicated he’d been given pills or injections during his stay.
Abreu’s next hearing is set for Thursday.
His Brooklyn neighbors have said he was a known nuisance who would ride bikes and scooters around the neighborhood with a group of others “like freaking maniacs,” one man told The Post.
Authorities have charged him with murder, attempted murder and gun charges for the shooting spree, which claimed the life of 86-year-old dad of six Homod Ali Saeidi.
Saeidi was on his way to a local mosque when Abreu allegedly rode by, pulled a handgun and shot him in the back.
The chilling caught-on-camera killing has left his family in shambles, according to his son, Ahmed Alsaedi.
“My heart is broken, my family is all devastated,” Alsaedi told The Post Sunday. “We can’t believe something like that would happen to an 86 year-old man. It’s terrible.”