Timberland Thief Slashes Throat Of Queens Clerk Chasing Him: Cops

FAR ROCKAWAY, QUEENS — Police charged a Queens man with attempted murder for stealing two left-footed Timberland boots then stabbing a shopkeeper who chased after him, records show.

Video surveillance showed Leroy Maddox, 40, swiping the shoes from JD Sports in Far Rockaway the evening of Oct. 11, according to the criminal complaint.

A store employee went searching for the man after seeing the surveillance footage and caught up with him by Mott Avenue and Beach 20th Street, according to the complaint, filed last week in Queens County Criminal Court.

The worker, Davis Oh, grabbed a black plastic bag with the shoes and said, "You're coming with me."

"For what?" Maddox allegedly replied, then slashed the worker in the neck, the complaint says.

EMS rushed the worker to Jamaica Hospital, where he had surgery and got stitches in his neck, according to the complaint and police.

On Oct. 17, police arrested Maddox for attempted murder, assault, petit larceny and criminal possession of a weapon and stolen property, according to the NYPD.

A spokesperson for the Legal Aid Society, which is representing Maddox, declined to comment.

A police detective said Maddox admitted to the shoplifting and the stabbing, telling him, "He looked like he wanted to get aggressive and take me back to the store, so that's when I poked him in the chin and walked off."

Maddox, of Rockaway Beach, told the detective he'd used "a regular Stop and Shop knife, that you cut cold cuts with," the complaint says.

"I wasn't thinking about anything when I stabbed him," Maddox allegedly added. "I just stabbed him and kept going. Because I knew his intentions were to take me back to the store and get me arrested for just two boots on the wall."