A lowlife crook showed that nothing is sacred anymore — swiping a wheelchair-bound, 93-year-old woman’s pension money right out of her bra as she shopped for new slippers, a startling video shows.
The thief targeted Maria Vasquez at a store on East 116th Street in East Harlem at about 12:15 p.m. Wednesday, cops said.
A surveillance video of the incident shows the crook trying to look casual as he sneaks up behind Vasquez, slips his hand into her brassiere and takes an envelope that held all the money she needs to live on for the month, $600.
Vasquez, a native of the Dominican Republic, was looking the other way at her caretaker as the thief struck, and she said she was stunned when he brazenly pawed at her chest.
“I was scared. I wasn’t expecting it,” she told The Post Thursday. “He reached over and startled me, yanking the envelope from my bra.
“He scratched me and took off running.
“I just screamed, ‘Run, run, he stole my money!’
“I jumped in my chair because I was strapped in. There was nothing I could do.”
The caretaker, Felicia Reyes, is seen on the video trying to comfort Vasquez as the elderly woman nervously grabs her chest while trying to process what had just occurred.
“It was very fast. I didn’t even know what happened,” said Reyes. “The money was in her bra, since I cannot carry the money. She didn’t have a handbag.”
The cruel crook was still at large Thursday night after fleeing east on 116th Street, police said.
According to the video, he had a “man bun” and beard, and wore a gray T-shirt with a man-purse-style bag slung over his shoulder.
Vasquez, who lives just a few blocks away from the store, has been wheelchair-bound since suffering a stroke.
She said she had just cashed her pension check at a bank and her caretaker put the money in her bra for safekeeping because the caretaker isn’t allowed to carry the cash and Vasquez was wearing a dress with no pockets.
“He must have seen me in the bank and followed me. He had the intention to rob me,” Vasquez said.
“I just never would have imagined he would do that.”
Vasquez will now be forced to find another source of income this month to pay for things such as her gas and electric bills.
“I’m worried about how I’m going to pay my bills now,” she said.
“Now, we’ll have to take more precaution. It’s scary. I hope this never happens again.”
Nevertheless, Vasquez, a devout Jehovah’s Witness, said she holds no grudge against the thief — although she prays the cops catch him soon.
“I hope . . . he gets punished, but I don’t want the death penalty for him,” she said. “I pray he changes his ways.”
She added, “Of course I forgive him. Just as Jesus Christ forgave. I pray God will bring him to justice.”
Additional reporting by Chris Perez and Daniel Prendergast