A woman was caught breaking and entering, after going through Robert De Niro’s Upper East Side townhouse early Monday morning.
She was grabbing Christmas gifts from under the tree and playing with his iPad when law enforcement arrived.
A well-known burglar, 30-year old Shanice Aviles, was identified as the burglar who broke into the actor’s home around 2:30 a.m.
Officers with the NYPD’s 19th Precinct public safety team had spotted Aviles trying to open doors to commercial buildings before she made her way inside De Niro’s home.
“She was stealing Christmas presents,” a police official confirmed. “There was no interaction between the actor and the burglar.”
De Niro, 79, and his daughter had been upstairs unaware of the intruder.
Cops busted Aviles, who has a total of 26 prior arrests, at the scene, and charges were pending earlier in the morning.
Aviles began her crimes, which are mostly burglaries, during the coronavirus pandemic. She was picked up for seven burglaries between Nov. 25 and Dec. 8 on the Upper East Side.
A lifelong New York resident, De Niro sold his West Village townhouse of 37 years for $9.5 million in 2012. At the height of the pandemic, the “Goodfellas” actor relocated to his house in upstate New York.
“He intends to reside in Gardiner for the foreseeable future,” his attorney Caroline Krauss said of De Niro, who grew up in Manhattan, at the time. “He is after all 79 and in the category of people for which COVID-19 is dangerous.”
