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Thief Yanks $200 Ruby Chain Off 3-Year-Old Girl's Neck, Police Say

By Gwynne Hogan | August 24, 2016 6:06pm
 A thief chattered and played with a 3-year-old and her mother, then yanked a ruby chain worth $250 off the baby’s neck when her mother wasn’t looking, according to police and the baby’s grandfather.
A thief chattered and played with a 3-year-old and her mother, then yanked a ruby chain worth $250 off the baby’s neck when her mother wasn’t looking, according to police and the baby’s grandfather.
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DNAinfo/Gwynne Hogan

WILLIAMSBURG — A man snatched a $200 ruby chain off a 3-year-old girl's neck after distracting the mom, police and the family said.

The thief stopped Jasmine Velez and her little girl on the sidewalk last Friday as they walked to their apartment in Williams Plaza Housing on Roebling Street and told her he was available for painting and hanging wall paper, she said.

He handed her a business card then stooped down to the girl and talked to her in a "cartoon" voice, Velez said.

As the man quickly walked off, the baby girl, who’s just learning to talk, kept pointing at her neck, according to police.

Velez soon realized that the chain was missing and that a red mark was forming on one side of her neck where it had been, she said. She was shocked that something like this could have happened under her nose, she added.

"I'm very meticulous about who stands near her," Velez said. "I had her hand the whole time and I was looking."

The mom handed the thief's business card over to investigators hoping it would help them track him down, she said.

"It wasn't worth a whole lot of money, it was something sentimental," said Velez, who'd gotten the chain as a gift from her own mother when she was a child.

Jasmine's father Gilberto Velez, 43, said he was "pissed off" at the bold actions of the thief. 

"It's ridiculous," he said. “She's a baby. What kind of person takes stuff away from a child like that?"

Police hadn't made any arrests as of Wednesday.