Bust in Chelsea attacks
Suspected in assaults on deli worker, grocery manager
Cops have arrested a suspect in two unprovoked Chelsea attacks in which a supermarket manager was bashed with a hammer and a deli worker was clobbered with a wine bottle, police said Monday.
Oscar Apronti, 27, was nabbed Sunday and charged with two counts each of assault and weapon possession and one count of stalking.
He’s accused of recording himself using a bottle to attack a worker opening a deli on Eighth Ave. near W. 25th St. about 6 a.m. on April 2, leaving the victim with a concussion. He also allegedly made a recording when he returned three days later to vandalize the store, according to a co-worker.
He struck again about 7 a.m. on July 23, allegedly attacking
Ramon Acevedo, 64, with a hammer as the victim was opening the Ninth Ave. Gristedes he manages.
Acevedo, who needed 12 stitches to close his wound, was back at work Monday for the first time since the attack.
“Well, that’s a good thing,” he said of the arrest. “Because a person like that shouldn’t be out on the streets. I was lucky — but someone else might not be.”
Acevedo said, however, it shouldn’t have taken so long to arrest Apronti, against whom he’d previously filed complaints for acting out and for allegedly shoplifting. A cashier also filed a harassment complaint against him. “I hope whatever happens after this gets him out of the streets because he shouldn’t be out there,” Acevedo said. “That’s gonna be the next issue, what’s gonna happen after this?
Because he definitely needs to serve time.”
Apronti, who lived in a Chelsea apartment until a fire about a month ago, was awaiting arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court on Monday.
His neighbors, none of whom would give their names, alleged he was violent and unstable. “He’s mentally disturbed,” said one neighbor, who recently got a 1 a.m. knock on the door from police looking for him. “He was a good kid. I don’t know what happened.”
Apronti also allegedly attacked someone in the building, the neighbor recounted. “He attacked a girl in the elevator, just went to grab her,” the neighbor said.
Neighbors said Apronti’s mother, Patricia, moved to Pennsylvania about three or four years ago and left Apronti in the apartment. He let other people stay in the apartment, smoking cigars and blunts in the hallway, the neighbors charged.
Apronti’s father died of cancer about 15 years ago, and a sister moved out, one woman said. “I saw him grow up,” she said. “I noticed he was acting strange a few years ago.”
After the fire, Apronti slept in the hallway outside his door for about a week, she and other neighbors said.
“I offered him food, a cheesecake from the store,” said the woman. “I said ‘You have to tell your mother’ and he said, ‘I tried to call her but I lost my phone.’ ”