A sicko threw a teen Total by Verizon worker to the ground, threatened her with a knife and tried to rape her before robbing the shop in a terrifying broad-daylight ordeal in East Harlem, cops said.
The 19-year-old victim had recently moved to the US and only worked for the Madison Avenue store a week when the strange barged in Sunday around noon and looked at an iPhone 11 display before he flashed a kniofe and followed her to the back of the store where he pinned her down, police and a coworker said.
“The guy came in as a regular customer and was looking at the phones,” coworker Riaz Fahim told The Post. “Then suddenly he became aggressive towards her. He held a knife at her.
“She ran to the back room and the guy ran in the room with her,” Fahim added. “She had hot tea in her hand and she tried to throw it at him, but he grabbed her arm and avoided it.”
The worker, who had apparently just moved from Bangladesh about seven or eight months ago, was alone in the store at the time, her coworker said.
The callous criminal finally swooped up three cell phones and $1,000 before bolting, police said. The NYPD took an iPhone 11 from the display case that he had been fiddling with as part of its investigation, Fahim said.
“She hasn’t come back to work,” he said Monday. “I wouldn’t be here but the police said everything should be good today. I don’t think she will come back to work here, she’s too traumatized.
“Even in her home country, Bangladesh, she never faced any kind of assault,” Fahim added. “This was the first in her life. She moved to America to chase the American Dream.
Video released by the NYPD shows the creep walking on the sidewalk wearing all black, with his hood pulled up.
He is believed to be between 25 and 30 years old, around 5-foot-8 and 160 pounds, with a dark complexion, slim build, short black hair and a short black beard, authorities said.
He had not been caught by Monday.
The disturbing crime comes weeks after Kashaan Parks, 39, allegedly tossed a belt around a 45-year-old woman’s neck, dragged her to the ground and raped her in a horrific caught-on-video May 1 scene in the Bronx, authorities said.