The man who brutally beat a beloved nonagenarian New York City candy store owner last year has been sentenced to 10 years in prison, officials announced Wednesday.
Luis Peroza, 40, eventually pleaded guilty in the attack on Ray Alvarez, now 91, outside Alvarez’s shop on Avenue A. Peroza also admitted to two more attacks on the same day, according to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
“Luis Peroza has been held accountable for viciously assaulting three individuals in just one day,” Bragg said in a statement. “I hope that this sentencing can bring a sense of justice and relief for each of the victims.”
Alvarez has been serving egg creams, fried Oreos and other treats to hungry customers at all hours since 1974 at Ray’s Candy Store. Around 3:30 a.m. on Jan. 31, 2023, Peroza and another man approached the store and offered him seltzers for purchase.
When Alvarez turned them down, the men became violent. Peroza grabbed a belt with a rock attached and began beating Alvarez, according to police.
“One of them hit [my employee] in the chest and the other guy said, ‘Hold this, I want to kill this bastard,'” Alvarez told the Daily News last year. “He took something that looked like a belt with a stone on it and he swung and hit me in the head. I fell down on the floor outside — I was bleeding and bleeding.”
About 30 minutes after the assault on Alvarez, Peroza attacked a man on Avenue C with the same hard object, investigators said. Several hours after that, he assaulted another man on Avenue B.
A few days later, cops arrested Peroza and his accomplice, Gerald Barth. In June 2023, Barth was found unfit to stand trial in the case. Six months later, Peroza pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree assault.
Alvarez meanwhile was back at work hours after he was beaten and “despite the attack, has shown great courage and resilience by returning to work and continuing to spread joy – as he has for decades,” Bragg said Wednesday.
