The ruthless mugger who allegedly beat a meals vendor with a steel pipe and stole $3,500 from his Hell’s Kitchen cart was busted Thursday and charged with two felonies, cops mentioned.
Jeffrey Vargas, 45, was nabbed round midday and charged with theft and assault, each within the second diploma, in connection to the ten:30 p.m. Tuesday assault on a 36-year-old cart operator at West forty ninth Avenue and Eighth Avenue, police mentioned.
The vicious beating left the employee with some damaged enamel, cops mentioned.
Vargas allegedly bashed the employee within the face and physique with “a number of objects,” together with the pipe, in response to cops and sources.
He then snatched $3,500 from the badly battered employee and bolted into the fiftieth Avenue subway station close by, police mentioned.
The sufferer was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, the place he was listed in secure situation, authorities mentioned.
A coworker mentioned Wednesday that the sufferer had solely labored on the cart for 3 or 4 months and certain needed to bear surgical procedure.
A sizzling canine cart employee situated a couple of block away from the scene of the beating mentioned he sometimes closes up store round 8 or 9 p.m. every evening due to security issues.
“I don’t open late at evening anymore as a result of it’s not protected,” he mentioned. “You don’t know who’s making an attempt to harm you or rob you.”
Vargas’ bust got here a day after the NYPD launched footage of him contained in the fiftieth Avenue station, staring straight on the surveillance cameras.
He has one prior arrest from 2019 for disorderly conduct, sources mentioned.
Further reporting by Joe Marino
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