He’s New York’s most notorious panhandler.
Seething Soho residents want brutish beggar Richard Pearson — known for spouting profanities, groping mannequins and allegedly assaulting merchants — yanked off the streets, according to a slew of angry letters exclusively obtained by The Post.
About two-dozen neighborhood residents have written letters to the Manhattan judge overseeing Pearson’s latest case, in which prosecutors are pursuing a felony-assault indictment after he allegedly bashed a Spring Street shop owner with a brick on May 22.
In a handwritten four-page letter to Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Charles Solomon, Spring Street food vendor Kamal Hussin says he’s terrified that Pearson will one day murder him or another innocent bystander.
He said one morning last year, Pearson — who has been arrested 21 times over the past 30 years — swiped Hussin’s 18-inch knife to attack a legless man who wouldn’t give him money.
Pearson’s lawyer. Alexei Grosshtern. said the locals are after his client because they don’t want a homeless man on their street. “His only crime is being poor and a panhandler in wealthy, swanky Soho,” he said.