PROSPECT-LEFFERTS GARDENS — A Flatbush Avenue jeweler outwitted a gun-toting duo who attacked him outside his store earlier this month, leaving the pair with a single diamond earring and police on their trail, the NYPD and the jeweler said.
Seventy-year-old Manny Cahen was opening his Poxy Jewelry store, 718 Flatbush Ave. near Parkside Avenue, at 9 a.m. on Jan. 10 when a man grabbed him by the neck and forced him into the vestibule between the shop's front entrance and its magnetically locked security door, jamming a gray pistol to his forehead and demanding he surrender the keys, Cahen and police said.
"I was shaking — the gun is in my face," Cahen said. "He hit me over the head with the gun."
But the septuagenarian refused to give up without a fight. He surreptitiously dropped his key ring into a trash can beside the front door as a second man entered demanding cash and jewels, he said. The delay between opening the first and second doors tripped the shop's alarm system, startling the thieves, Cahen said.
"Because I'd opened the front door, the alarm was ringing," the jeweler explained, saying he told the pistol-packing pair he couldn't unlock the store as they cursed and panicked.
With the door blocked and the alarm blaring, the thieves grabbed Cahen's bag and fled. The bag contained a single diamond earring Cahen had brought home to repair and was returning to the store.
"They left with my bag and a diamond earring, but no money," the jeweler said. "If they came in and made me shut off the alarm or open the safe, that's a big problem for me."
Police were still investigating the crime as of Tuesday.
Other notable crimes in the 71st Precinct this week include:
► A 30-year-old man was carjacked at knifepoint at the intersection of Rogers Avenue and Winthrop Street in Prospect-Lefferts Gardens at 7 a.m. on Jan. 11, police said. No one was immediately arrested.
► A teen with a black pistol attempted to rob a man at 80 Winthrop St. at 3:30 p.m. Jan. 13, police said. Police later arrested 18-year-old Jaquan Hart in connection with the incident, the NYPD said.
The Kings County District Attorney's office could not immediately provide additional information about the case.
