FINANCIAL DISTRICT — A serial shoplifter tried to steal more than $1,000 in lottery tickets, cigarettes and gum from a 7-Eleven after head-butting someone and threatening to shoot him at a nearby building, officials said.
Ex-con Naquan Hopkins, 23, was inside a building at 129 Fulton St. around 5:15 a.m. on April 29 when he head-butted an unidentified man in the lip, a criminal complaint filed by the Manhattan District Attorney’s office said.
“I swear on my mother I’m going to shoot you in the face,” Hopkins told the man, according to the complaint.
Twenty minutes later, around 5:35 a.m., an employee at a nearby 7-Eleven at 111 John St. spotted Hopkins staring at lottery tickets inside the store and asked if he needed assistance, police said.
A few minutes after that, Hopkins went behind the counter at the store, grabbed 107 scratch-off lottery tickets worth a total of $833, 15 packs of Newport cigarettes worth $216 and 19 packs of Orbit gum worth $29 and left the store without paying for them, police and the DA’s office said.
Hopkins was arrested soon after leaving the store and charged with burglary, grand larceny, assault and harassment, the complaint said.
An assistant manager working at the 7-Eleven on Tuesday declined to comment on the incident.
Hopkins is currently being held at the Manhattan Detention Complex on $10,000 bail and was expected to appear in court Thursday, city Department of Correction records show.
He is also facing charges of criminal possession of stolen property and criminal mischief for trying to steal two pairs of headphones from an AT&T store on Graham Avenue in Williamsburg on Jan. 20, according to a complaint filed by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office.
Last month, he pleaded guilty to grand larceny and petit larceny for trying to swipe six shirts and a jacket worth more than $1,000 in total from Saks Fifth Avenue at 611 Fifth Ave. on Nov. 8, 2016, the Manhattan DA’s office said.
In January 2015, he was released from a Washington Heights residential treatment facility on parole after being sentenced to up to two years for second degree assault, state Department of Correction records show.
Hopkins’ attorney didn’t respond to request for comment.
