He’s the kind of son-in-law every mom wants.
A Long Island man valiantly defended his mother-in-law on an East Village street as she was being robbed by a pitiless thug with a long rap sheet for violent crimes, sources said.
Despite suffering from kidney disease, David Flores, 56, sprang into action after he spotted Ivan Cotton, 50, allegedly grab a pushcart from his mother-in-law, Delia Dacek, 73, as she entered her home on First Avenue just after midnight Monday morning.
“It was a nightmare,” Dacek told The Post. “I didn’t want my son-in-law to get into it with him, but he didn’t want the guy to get close to me.
“My son-in-law loves me too much. He’s a good son-in-law.”
Dacek said her daughter, Helen Flores, and son-in-law, a former officer with the Air Force military police, drove her back to Manhattan from Suffolk County and watched from a car to make sure she entered her home safely.
As she opened the front door, Cotton allegedly grabbed her cart, which contained prescription drugs and about $100 in cash.
“I was putting my key in the door,” she said. “There’s no light outside the door, so you can’t see when you go in. I felt someone pulling my shopping cart.”
She immediately yelled at the mugger to stop.
“I said, ‘Stupid-head! Why do you do that?’ ” she recalled. “He said, ‘What are you gonna do?’
“My son-in-law got out of the car and said, ‘What’s the matter with you?’ The guy said, ‘If you don’t like it, do something about it.’ He ran at my son-in-law.”
Flores bravely stood his ground to defend Dacek — even though he is in need of a kidney transplant and requires regular dialysis.
“My husband tried to restrain him because he saw the guy put his hands in his pockets and he thought he had a weapon,” said Helen Flores. “My husband said he’s a not hero . . . To me, he’s my hero. I don’t know how he found the strength.”
It was more of an act of bravery than they knew, since Cotton’s long rap sheet includes beating up a woman, using knives to commit crimes and attacking two men with baseball bats. He’s been in prison four times since 1984.
Fortunately, the face-off never came to blows, as four cops heard the commotion and quickly arrested Cotton.
“I couldn’t believe how fast the cops got there,” Flores said.
Cotton was charged with robbery and is being held in lieu of $15,000 bail.