UPPER EAST SIDE — A pair of teens shoplifted $1,000 in candy, medicine and other merchandise from a local Duane Reade on Labor day, according to the NYPD.
Wesley Pujols, 19, and a 16-year-old whose name was not released walked into the drugstore at 1356 Lexington Ave. at 90th Street, and stuffed $300 worth of candy, $663 in body care products, $135 in medicine and $35 worth of electronics into bags before trying to leave the store without paying at about 10:17 a.m. on Sept. 5, police said.
A third accomplice, who was in his mid-20s, was with them but managed to escape.
A female employee tried to intervene as they were leaving, but they lunged at her and made threatening statements as they fled, police said.
The 16-year-old yelled, "I will break your face," at the employee, according to a criminal complaint.
Pujols was arraigned on robbery, grand larceny, and criminal possession of marijuana on Sept. 6 and released without bail, according to court records.
His attorney did not immediately return a call for comment.
The 16-year-old was charged with robbery, grand larceny, and criminal possession of a weapon for having a firearm, police said, but the gun wasn't shown during the incident.
His bail was set at $2,500 cash or $5,000 bond. He is currently being held at Rikers Island.
A spokesman for Duane Reade declined to comment but said that the safety of the store's customers and employees is "a top concern."
Other crimes that occurred last week within the 19th Precinct include:
► A man entered Chicken Lovers at 1163 Second Ave. at 61st Street, after grabbing ice cream from an outdoor freezer, then went behind the shop's counter and snatched a tray of food and a cellphone at roughly 3:10 a.m. on Sept. 6, police said. A woman, who was with the suspect, waited outside. They both fled with the goods, police said.
► A woman in her 30s was walking on the corner of Third Avenue and East 86th Street after midnight on Sept. 9, when a man on a bicycle approached her and snatched her iPhone 6s Plus out of her hand and fled with three other men on bikes, police said. Her phone was worth about $500.
► Tools worth $2,612 were stolen from a construction site located on East 76th Street, between Madison and Park avenues, over the Labor Day weekend. Construction workers returned to the site on Sept. 6 at 8 a.m. to discover their tools were missing, police said.
► Someone pushed over and broke a concrete tree planter in front of 31 E. 79th St. near Madison Avenue and destroyed the roots of the tree on Sept. 2 around 6 p.m. Police said the suspect is a man, but had no further description. The planter and tree were valued at $1,000.
