By Larry Celona, Christopher Francescani and Bill Hoffmann
A hairdresser was so obsessed with a neighbor that he moved into a smaller apartment below hers at the same rent - so he could punch holes in the ceiling and take nude videos of her, authorities said.
Cops said Hideaki Nakano, 35, convinced his super to let him trade his one-bedroom apartment for a studio. It was much smaller, but was on the third floor - directly under the fourth-floor apartment of his 36-year-old victim.
"He didn't give any real reason as to why he wanted to move," building superintendent Tony Nikac told The Post yesterday.
"His first apartment was much bigger and he offered to pay the same rent for the studio. It was strange, but I let him do it anyway."
Nakano was busted over the weekend after cops found 12 quarter-inch holes in his ceiling allegedly used to take explicit photos of his upstairs neighbor, who is also Japanese.
They also found expensive miniature cameras, surveillance equipment and numerous candid-camera-type photos and videotapes of nude women.
"He's a sick bastard," said Carlos Negron, another neighbor in the apartment house at 63-80 Wetherole St. in Rego Park.
The case is eerily reminiscent of the R-rated suspense movie "Sliver," in which a pervert videotapes Sharon Stone nude with lenses he snakes through holes in her apartment walls.
Nakano - who detectives said works in a pricy hair salon on West 57th Street in Manhattan - moved into a $700-a-month, one-bedroom apartment in the building a year ago. After exchanging pleasantries with his unsuspecting victim in the lobby, he asked Nikac for the apartment swap.
Police said Nakano secretly drilled holes in different parts of his ceiling and fitted them with fiber-optic lenses which were attached to cameras and video recorders.
Over a period of months, he photographed her walking around in the apartment naked or scantily dressed, authorities said.
On two occasions earlier this month, the victim noticed small holes in different areas of her floor which had pencil-like devices sticking through them. When she approached them, the devices were suddenly retracted.
Suspicious and scared, she went to cops, who obtained a search warrant to look through Nakano's apartment.
In a complaint filed by Queens District Attorney Richard Brown, investigators said the videos they found in his apartment showed various nude women, including the upstairs neighbor.
"We are trying to determine who the other women are and if he did this in other apartments he lived in," an investigator told The Post.
The suspect was charged with burglary, criminal mischief, harassment, eavesdropping and possession of burglary tools. If convicted, he could get five to 15 years behind bars.
The super said Nakano was a well-behaved tenant who always paid his rent on time.
"I was surprised, because he seemed very quiet. We never had any problem with him," he said.
A next-door neighbor of Nakano, who asked that his name not be printed, said: "He didn't look the part. but I guess appearances can be deceiving. He was shy and quiet."
Last night, the shaken victim - whose name is being withheld by The Post - was staying with her parents in Manhattan.
"She's absolutely terrified. She's too afraid to return home," another neighbor said. "She had spoken with this man in the hallway a few times, but that's it. She can't believe what he was doing."
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