A celebrated New York City restaurant owner was put into a chokehold by a man inside his Manhattan apartment building and squeezed so tight his trachea fractured, police say.
Silvano Marchetto, 70, the owner of famed Greenwich Village restaurant Da Silvano, was attacked while a second suspect stole nearly $2,000 from him, according to the NYPD.
Da Silvano closed in December 2016. Marchetto was in the lobby of the same building that housed the celebrity eatery for decades when he was attacked.
It was Sunday morning at about 12:30 when the first suspect walked up to him and put him into a chokehold until he fell to the ground, police said.
The attacker choked him so hard his trachea was fractured, authorities said.
A second suspect stole approximately $1,800 from him before they both left the area, officials said.
The victim went to an area hospital, where he received treatment for the fractured windpipe, the NYPD said. He is expected to make a full recovery.
“It’s horrible,” Jim Farmer, of Tribeca, said. “When you beat somebody up and choke them and put them in the hospital, there’s no sense. Where’s the sense? These are desperate people who probably needed a lot of money.”
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Police Wednesday morning released surveillance photos of the two suspects in hopes of catching the duo.
