Police in New York City arrested a mugger whose attempt to steal a Holocaust survivor’s purse was thwarted when the elderly woman fought back.
Forty-nine-year-old Lillian Maduro was arrested Monday and charged with robbery and assault in connection with a September 27 incident in Greenwich Village, New York City.
Authorities say Maduro sneaked up behind Gina Zuckerman, 90, and tried to grab her bag from her utility cart. Zuckerman was knocked down during the assault, but wouldn’t let go of her bag.
“I stopped for traffic and she bopped me over the head, so I fell down, and she wanted my pocketbook,” Zuckerman recalled, according to the Daily Mail. “She grabbed me above my elbow and dug her nails into my flesh, and ripped me. I needed several stitches in the hospital.”
She only had $10 on her at the time.
Police say Maduro fled and remained on the loose until a DNA sample linked her to the crime.
Zuckerman, who needed five stitches on her right arm, says her “inner lioness” came out when she was attacked.
Zuckerman, born in Poland, was 13 years old when the Nazis invaded in 1939 and spent six years in a German labor camp.
At her arraignment on Tuesday, Maduro’s lawyer told the court that the suspect suffers from mental illness, including depression. Maduro is being held on $50,000 cash bond or $25,000 bail. She was arrested in 2014 as well, on a drug-dealing charge.
“I am not vengeful, I just think this is a terrible thing for her to do,” Zuckerman told the New York Daily News, “I’ve been thinking about the lady, and I think she should go to a mental hospital. I don’t think she should go to a jail.”
Zuckerman celebrated her 91st birthday while recovering from the incident.
By: AP and World Israel News Staff