NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) – A man was sentenced to 10 years in prison Wednesday for an attack spree in the East Village last January that injured three men, including the beloved 91-year-old owner of Ray’s Candy Store.
Luis Peroza was convicted in December of three counts of first-degree assault in connection to the three back-to-back attacks on Jan. 31, 2023.
The assault spree started around 3 a.m., when Peroza tried to sell canned drinks to Ray Alvarez, the owner of Ray’s Candy on Avenue A.
Alvarez declined to purchase the drinks, so Peroza struck him in the head with a hard object, breaking his jaw, fracturing his facial bones and giving him a black eye, according to the Manhattan D.A.’s Office.
“He swing and hit me on the left side very hard,” Alvarez told 1010 WINS after the attack. “Believe me, I was shaken up. I was in shock. The way that he hit me, that heavy thing, I should have been dead, you know?”
A half-hour after attacking Alvarez, Peroza demanded money from a 33-year-old man as he left a deli on Avenue C. When the man told him he didn’t have any money, Peroza struck him in the face with the hard object, breaking his orbital bone and causing a severe laceration to his face.
Several hours after that, Peroza walked up to a 51-year-old man on Avenue B and repeatedly struck him in the head with the hard object, lacerating his face and head, knocking out a tooth and fracturing his facial bones.
Police have described the “hard object” as “a belt with a heavy rock on the end.”
In a statement Wednesday, Manhattan D.A. Alvin Bragg said, “Luis Peroza has been held accountable for viciously assaulting three individuals in just one day. Among those attacked was the beloved owner of Ray’s Candy Store, who despite the attack, has shown great courage and resilience by returning to work and continuing to spread joy – as he has for decades.”
A second man charged in the attack spree, Gerald Barth, 55, was found unfit to stand trial last year and transferred to the New York State Office of Mental Health. He was known as “Insanity Claus” in the area due to his erratic behavior and a Santa Claus suit he wore, according to the EV Grieve blog.
Alvarez told 1010 WINS that he wasn’t discouraged by the attack.
“I believe everybody has some goodness in them,” he said. “I like the American people. I like New York.”