Retired doctor, 94, randomly punched at NYC Apple store

A 94-year-old retired doctor was randomly punched by a “crazy” attacker at an Upper East Side Apple store this week – as the nonagenarian fears “this may happen again to me or to somebody else.”

Moshe Labi had just bought a new Apple Watch at the store on Madison Avenue near East 74th Street around 5:45 p.m. Tuesday, alongside his 78-year-old girlfriend Evelia Butt, when the menace – who had already started trouble with others – blindsided him in the vestibule.

“We were in [the store] for a long time, and then we went to leave, and … there was some ruckus going on. Somebody was doing something to somebody else,” Labi told The Post Thursday. “So I told [Evelia], ‘Let’s wait for a second until everything clears.’”

“And we stood there until everything cleared, and then within seconds, somebody walked in and punched me in the face,” Labi said. “[Evelia] immediately ran after him, and in the meantime I was falling.”

Labi said he was lucky to have been standing against the wall, which “slowed down” his fall. 

“Otherwise, it could have been much worse. I had hit my head, hit my back, and the punch was really like this – the whole thing,” he said as he put his fist to his jaw. 

“Subconsciously, I’m still living the experience because it was traumatic, and finding myself unable to react the way that I would have liked to do … this is kind of depressing,” Labi said. “[Hopefully] in
days and weeks I will recover completely, but I’m still under that feeling of insecurity, that maybe if I walked on the street, this may happen again to me or to somebody else.”

Born in Libya, Labi fled with his family when the Nazis evaded North Africa, and has since lived a storied life. 

He moved to Sudan, Egypt, and then Italy, where he went to medical school, before traveling to Israel, where he fought in the Independence War. 

He then moved to the Big Apple, where he worked as an internist and eventually the director of a medical group before retiring at 89. 

Labi also recently published a memoir, “Benghazi, Tel Aviv, New York: A Journey from Adversity to Success.”

His medical background helped him to realize that he didn’t need to go to the hospital after the attack, because there was “no blood” and he had no trouble breathing, so he went with officers to the local precinct station house. 

Labi said at one point he was also a martial arts instructor, but admitted the lanky menace “surprised me.”

He said he doesn’t think it would have been possible to “reason” with his attacker, who he believed was “deranged in one way or the other” and “really quote-unquote ‘crazy.’”

“I really cannot blame what the city [is doing] but there is definitely a need for some department of some people to take care of people like this guy, because there are more than one obviously walking around the city,” Labi added. “And I can [say] I think I was lucky. It could have been much worse.”

Meanwhile, Butt told The Post a store employee informed her the assailant was angry because his credit card was declined when he attempted to buy a phone.

And later, “he was harassing some woman that was parked right there in front of the store,” she said. 

“These people have to be caught,” she said. “He could have done it to somebody else and to have to do this to a 94-year-old, it’s really shocking.”

The attacker fled north on Madison Avenue and had not been caught by Thursday, police said. 

He is described as having a dark complexion and slim build, stood at least 6 feet tall and was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, blue pants and tan shoes.

Anyone with information on the crime is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782). 

The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website or on X @NYPDTips.