The owner of a Queens pawn shop was nearly beaten to death by an attacker who used a rod NBC New York’s Checkey Beckford reports.
Authorities have arrested a man in the case of a Queens pawnshop owner who died weeks after a beating so savage that cops initially thought he'd been shot in the head.
Rondolfo Lopez-Portillo, a 48-year-old from Queens, faces murder, robbery and criminal weapons possession charges in the March 28 attack on Arasb Shoughi at the 60-year-old's Global Pawn store on Jamaica Avenue.
The suspect, whose address is on the same street, was apprehended on Wednesday in the case. Attorney information for him wasn't immediately clear.
According to information previously released by the NYPD, the suspect, now identified as Lopez-Portillo, walked into the neighborhood staple just before 1 p.m. that March day and beat Shoughi in the head, repeatedly, with some unknown object.
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It's not clear what he allegedly stole from the store before he fled.
A fellow business owner was the one to find Shoughi in a pool of blood.
"(I) rushed there, saw him there and then tried to get something to stop the bleeding," the other owner, who didn't want to be identified, said at the time.
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Many neighbors and customers stopped by the business to share their shock and grief after news of Shoughi's attack.
"I'm very hurt because he always looked out for me. I don't know about everybody else, but me personally. I just want to give my prayers to him," said Hasan Campbell.
He died a few weeks later, on April 17.
