An alleged iPhone snatcher — who became a downloadable phenom this summer after his dramatic, caught-on-video “arrest” by good Samaritans in lower Manhattan — will be offered mental health treatment rather than incarceration.
Manhattan prosecutors said today that they have agreed to refer Noah Udell, 26, to a new section of Manhattan Supreme Court that arranges treatment and monitoring rather than jail for non-violent, severely mentally ill defendants.
Udell had told the cops who arrested him after the July alleged mugging that he was suicidal, according to a confession released after the so-called “iJerk” pleaded not guilty today to pulling the device out of woman’s hands as she stood surfing the ‘Net outside her Church street office.
“I’m going to kill myself,” he told cops, according to the confession. “So when I saw the phone, I said, ‘f— it. Why not?”
Udell later told the Post that he was “having a manic episode” at the time of the alleged mugging. He remains held in lieu of $2,500 bail on charges of felony robbery pending his next date — in the new “Manhattan Mental Health Court” at 100 Centre St. — on Sept. 21.