Deep in Howard Beach, Queens, Kris Gounden has built up a beautiful home on a sprawling waterfront property where he lives with his wife and his four children.
But Gounden is of Guyanese descent, and some of his white neighbors have undertaken a harassment campaign to run him out of the neighborhood, which became infamous for racism in the 1980s.
Now there is a constant police presence outside his home in Hamilton Beach and a neighbor has been busted on felony hate-crime charges.
Since he moved from Ozone Park in July last year, Gounden said he has put up with his next-door neighbors and their pals blocking his driveway, dumping garbage and urinating on his property - and logging daily complaints against him with city agencies.
"It's something out of the Deep South, or the backwoods, circa 1950," a police source said.
The last straw came Aug.11, when a neighbor, 19-year-old Michael Hussey, threatened Gounden's family as they sat out on the deck.
"He comes back with a baseball bat," Gounden said. "He said, 'F--k you, n----r. You don't belong in here. I will burn this house. I'll kill all of you.'"
Responding police officers told the teen only to keep to himself. But Hussey was busted Saturday after Gounden complained to the commanding officer of the 106th Precinct.
Hussey was charged with menacing, aggravated harassment, criminal possession of a weapon and trespassing - all as hate crimes. He declined to comment last night.
On Dec. 19, 1986, Howard Beach became notorious when a dozen white teens chased a 23-year-old black man, Michael Griffith, onto the Belt Parkway, where he was killed by a car. But Gounden said he won't be intimidated. "I'm staying here," he said.
With Ethan Rouen
