The man charged with slugging the beloved 90-year-old owner of the East Village landmark “Ray’s Candy Store” is being held behind bars on $200,000 bail.
Luis Peroza, 39, is accused of punching Ray Alvarez outside the legendary sweets peddler’s business Tuesday after the elderly victim refused to buy a package of soda from him, according to a criminal complaint filed late Saturday.
Peroza and a second man, 55-year-old Gerald Barth, are also charged with robbing a second man just 35 minutes later outside an Avenue C deli, pummeling that victim with an object after demanding money, the complaint said.
Police said the crooks walked up to Alvarez outside the famed candy shot around 3 a.m. Tuesday and tried to sell him the soda — then punched him when he refused.
Alvarez, who opened the store in 1974, told The Post that his assailants struck him with “a belt with a stone on one end,” knocking him to the ground.
“I went down, bleeding,” he said. “I thought, I’m never going to make it. He hit me in a very bad spot. I just want to lay down.”
Nonetheless, the tough-as-nails storeowner was back behind the counter Wednesday.
Then about a half-hour after the attack on Alvarez, Peroza and Barth showed up outside an Avenue C deli lugging a shopping cart, the complaint said.
They blocked their second victim’s path and demanded, “Give me your money!” authorities said.
That’s when Peroza hit the victim with “an unknown object, causing a deep, bleeding laceration” to his head and “a broken orbital bone, and substantial pain,” according to the complaint filed by Manhattan prosecutors Saturday.
The two accused crooks were spotted on surveillance footage in the neighborhood at least three times in the hours after the attacks, the complaint said.
Barth was arrested Wednesday, and Peroza was picked up Friday, cops said.
Peroza was charged with first- and second-degree assault, two counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of first-degree attempted robbery.
Barth was charged with first-degree assault and two counts each of first-degree robbery and first-degree attempted robbery, according to the complaint.
Prosecutors said Barth was ordered held on $3,000 cash or a $5,000 bond.
