The “Cat Woman” burglar — whose cat-masked wanted poster became an Internet sensation last year — was convicted today of armed robbery charges from heists at two high-end SoHo boutiques.
It took a Manhattan Supreme Court jury just 30 minutes to reach their verdict against Shana Spalding, 29, of Astoria, Queens. She is to be sentenced Jan. 18, and faces a maximum of 15 years on the top armed robbery charge against her.
By night, Shana Spalding called herself “Purgatory” and wore strappy black leather costumes as she “sang” — or rather growled — her way through death-metal tunes with pals named “Ruin” and “Lord Draconova” in her garage band, Divine Infamy.
But Manhattan prosecutors told jurors that Spalding’s days were spent in even weirder costumes and pursuits.
“That’s just who she is,” prosecutor Craig Ortner said in closing arguments earlier today. “She is a performer with a penchant for dress-up and fantasy.”
On June 24, 2010, Spalding held up Arche Shoes on Astor Pl. while wearing a cat mask, officials say — a crime she says she never committed despite a police confession.
The next day, she held up a Body Shop store in Astoria while wearing a full-length Burka and speaking in a fake Arabic accent — a crime she eventually pleaded guilty to but which she now says she also did not commit.
She was caught two months after the Arche heist, on August 25, as she fled her third armed robbery, this one back in SoHo, at Cotelac, a French sportswear store on Greene St.
This time, prosecutors said, she’d attracted the attention of plainclothes Manhattan robbery detectives, who’d told jurors they’d followed her for more than an hour as she prowled SoHo with a black scarf over her head.
Caged, Spalding claimed at first that cops had the wrong woman — until, her lawyer told jurors, she cracked under pressure of a tough police grilling.
“They didn’t beat her,” defense lawyer Lori Cohen said in closing statements. “But they pressured her. You’re the cat woman. You’re the cat woman. And eventually, she said, ‘You know what, fine. I’m the cat woman.'”
Spalding had also told cops — and, in her tearful testimony, jurors — that she’d been coerced into the final robbery by a mysterious abductor named “Angel Martinez.”
“There is not even a shred of evidence to prove that Martinez exists,” Ortner told jurors, pointing to a Metrocard, store video footage and hats and gloves found in her possession that he said link her to the costumed spree.