US News

PARK THUG MUGS CUPID

Seconds after a man popped the question to his sweetheart in Central Park, a gunman sprang from the bushes and robbed the couple but at leat they saved the ring.

Luke Jacunski, 30, had picked a romantic setting to propose to his girlfriend of six months – the gazebo off Strawberry Fields in Central Park.

So at about 8:30 p.m. Saturday, he asked his intended, Mami Nagase, to accompany him on a stroll in the park.

He got down on his knee, and the 24-year-old artist had just accepted – when they were confronted by an armed man.

It clearly wasn’t Cupid – he was carrying a gun, not a bow and arrow.

“He shouted, ‘Give me your money and get down on the ground! Give me your jewelry!’ ” said Jacunski, a musician.

As the couple complied – the second trip to the ground that night for Jacunski – he managed to slip the silver engagement ring off of his fiancée’s finger.

The move caught the mugger’s eye, and he demanded, “What are you doing?”

Jacunski played dumb and replied, “What are you talking about?” as he slid the band under his arm.

The engagement crasher stuck his silver gun into Jacunski’s stomach and ordered him to roll over, but Jacunski still managed to hide the ring.

After warning the couple, “Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me!” the thug grabbed other jewelry off of Nagase’s fingers, a family-heirloom Rolex watch from her wrist, and $125 from Jacunski, which he had been planning to spend on dinner.

Jacunski said he hadn’t been too frightened of the gun. “I’ve had a gun pulled on me before,” he said, explaining he’d been mugged twice in his native Cincinnati.

The two went to the Central Park Precinct station house, where they spent the next four hours looking through mug shots.

“Instead of having dinner at a nice French restaurant, we had a bag of Doritos,” Jacunski said.

“It was supposed to be a special night – but it turned out kind of crazy.”

But for richer – or now poorer – the two are still planning to get hitched.

“It makes for a pretty good story for our anniversary,” he said.

“The only thing I cared about was making sure she was OK.”

Additional reporting by Patrick Gallahue