A homeless man was held on $8,000 bail for allegedly sucker-punching a 94-year-old former doctor outside an Upper East Side Apple store.
Lewis Reynolds was arrested Friday, three days after he is believed to have slugged the oldtimer in the face, causing the victim to fall inside the store on Madison Avenue near East 74th Street, authorities said.
Reynolds, 31, who has no known address, pleaded not guilty to second- and third-degree assault during his overnight arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court early Saturday.
A disheveled Reynolds, clad in a black t-shirt and grey sweatpants, anxiously rocked back and forth as his Legal Aid Society attorney claimed the accused assaulter leads “a law-abiding life,” complete with gigs in DoorDash delivery, home improvement and construction work.
The lawyer insisted Reynolds has “a stable residence,” but admitted the alleged scofflaw has never even been to the Queens homeless shelter that was listed for him.
Ultimately, Judge Valentina Morales set bail after determining Reynolds’ “limited ties” to the Big Apple and family connections in California made him “somewhat of a flight risk.”
The victim recalled the “traumatic” experience during an exclusive interview with The Post Thursday, and said he fears “this may happen again to me or somebody else.”
The man, who only gave the name Moshe, had just purchased a new Apple watch when the menace – who had already started trouble with other customers before turning on the nonagenarian – blindsided him in a vestibule.
“We were in [the store] for a long time, and then we went to leave and…there was some ruckus going on. Somebody was doing something to somebody else,” he said.
Moshe and his 78-year-old girlfriend, Evelia, were standing and waiting for the situation to de-escalate when the brute came out of nowhere and socked the retired internist.
“[Evelia] immediately ran after him, and in the meantime, I was falling,” he recalled.
Moshe refused medical attention at the scene, but was left with a nasty bruise under his left cheekbone – and lasting trauma.
“Subconsciously, I’m still living the experience because it was traumatic, and finding myself unable to react the way that I would have liked to … is kind of depressing.
“[Hopefully] in days and weeks I will recover completely, but I’m still under that feeling of insecurity, that maybe if I walked on the street, this may happen again to me or to somebody else,” Moshe said.
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