A Bronx woman has been sentenced to five years in prison for violently robbing a 103-year-old legally blind woman in her apartment building as she returned from a local community center last spring.
Sharon McNeil, 53, pleaded guilty to second-degree robbery in September. Proseuctors said she followed Louise Signore into her apartment building on Bellamy Loop in Co-op City on April 1 and got on the elevator with her.
McNeil then followed Signore to her floor, where she knocked her to the ground and grabbed her purse and two meals she got from a local community center, police said.
"See, I thought it was a man and I'm legally blind," Signore told NBC 4 New York at the time. "And they tell me it's a woman."
#CCPD hopes to make this 103yr old robbery victim a little more comfortable with this gift to replace items taken. pic.twitter.com/KJfjIETsfS
— Co-Op City Police (@CCPDnyc) April 3, 2016
"She took the cart and everything in it," Signore said. "I had a lot of bags in the cart, things I use every day, like bingo and my magnifier."
Signore was evaluated by EMS at the scene but refused further medical attention, authorities said.
In addition to her prison sentence, McNeil will be under three years of post-release supervision.
