$3,500 Reward for Info on Park Slope Mugger Targeting Elderly Women

Pictured, from left: Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announces the reward; 555 9th Street in Park Slope. Photos by John V. Santore

PARK SLOPE, BROOKLYN — An ugly crime spree targeting Park’s Slope’s most vulnerable residents brought a group of Brooklyn officials to the corner of 9th Street and Park Avenue West on Thursday, where Borough President Eric Adams pledged $1,000 of his own money toward the campaign to find the perpetrator.

Adams' money supplements a $2,500 reward already put up by NYPD officials for information leading to the arrest of the man they believe to be responsible for two recent attacks targeting elderly women in the family-filled — and normally safe — Brooklyn neighborhood.

Early Wednesday afternoon, 91-year-old Elizabeth Gioino was choked and robbed at gunpoint as she walked into her brownstone at 555 9th Street, police said. The robber made off with $370 he snatched from Gioino and a neighbor, according to police.

The borough president, a former police officer, said that on Feb. 11, the same suspect pistol-whipped a 71-year-old Park Slope woman before robbing her of hundreds of dollars.

“This is a bad person, and he needs to go where bad people go — we call that jail,” Adams said, standing feet from both Gioino’s home and a statue of a sword-wielding Marquis de Lafayette.

Adams said he also plans to personally deliver a $175 check to Gionio to compensate her for the money she lost.

“If you are an older woman, you can be vulnerable,” Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon, who represents Park Slope, said at the press event. “This is ridiculous, this is scary, this is unsafe.”

Adams called the suspect a “brute,” and State Sen. Kevin Parker called him a “coward” who needed to be caught for the “peace of mind, not just [of] this community, but for the people of Brooklyn.”

But borough officials also noted that crimes of this nature are relatively rare in the neighborhood.

Statistics from the 78th police precinct, which includes all of Park Slope, show rates for most types of crime dropped significantly in January and February compared to the same period last year — although robberies ticked up from 13 instances to 20.

Captain Frank DiGiacomo, who heads the 78th, said there have been no crimes at all in Prospect Park so far this year.

Putting in a shift at Dizzy’s diner further on down 9th Street, server Tony Artiga, 27, said he’s lived in Park Slope all his life and has never felt unsafe.

“When this [kind of thing] happens,” Artiga said, “it’s more shocking because it’s not something that were used to.”

Another longtime neighborhood resident who declined to give her name said she also feels safe in the area, adding that she’s surprised the crime took place on 9th Street, which is typically crowded with pedestrians.

In light of the two senior muggings in Park Slope and the uptick in local robberies, Adams said he’s working on a plan to bring more surveillance cameras to the neighborhood. Details of the plan, he said, will be revealed within the next few months.