On Friday afternoon, a 30-something-year-old man posing as a customer was buzzed into Margo Manhattan, an Upper East Side jewelry store known for catering to Beyoncé, as well as Selena Gomez, Kate Winslet, Alexa Ray Joel, and less well-known wealthy people. The New York Daily News reports that the guy asked the shop’s manager, Marcy Imbert, to see some items and then grabbed her by the neck when she opened a display case. He then dragged Imbert into a back room and tied her hands behind her back. “She came to a point where she saw her life in front of her,” said the boutique’s titular owner. “He was really forceful. He choked her. He said, ‘I’m going to kill you.’” He also kicked Manhattan’s puppy, Mia.
The suspect then removed Imbert’s key from her wrist and tried to use it to get into some locked display cases, though he was unable to open them, the New York Post reports. He did, however, locate an open safe in the back room, and he took a bunch of jewelry as well as “several thousand” dollars in cash and the contents of Imber’s purse. Among the items stolen were a diamond pendant Beyoncé wore in the video for “Blow,” as well as “interlocking heart rings [made] for Selena Gomez” and “18 caret white gold, diamonds, amethyst and a big chunky bracelet,” said Manhattan. The losses totaled about $54,000.
The robber, described by CBS New York as “a black male, last seen wearing a black baseball cap with a Brooklyn Nets logo, blue jeans, black T-shirt, black belt with a silver colored buckle and a beaded silver chain” finally ran out when another employee came through the front door. Here is some grainy surveillance video of him first entering the store:
