A cruel con man accused of stealing a gold-plated rose from the September 11 Memorial at a downtown Catholic church was arrested Friday for the unholy crime, according to the NYPD.
Dekel Alcantara, 21, was turned over to police by his father and charged with grand larceny for allegedly stealing a $3,000 rose — forged from metal from Ground Zero and plated with gold — from a shrine inside the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on Wednesday. Police and sources said.
The memorial at the West 31st Street house of worship honors all the lives lost in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, especially the Rev. Michal Judge, who was pastor of St. Francis of Assisi and an FDNY chaplain.
“This was not just theft, as far as I'm concerned, it's an act of desecration,” current pastor Brian Jordan told The Post on Wednesday.
Police sources said that the fate of the gold-plated rose remains unknown because it has not yet been returned to the church, despite Alcanatara's arrest.
Before Alcanatara's arrest, the priest said the alleged thief was known to people throughout the parish.
“We've seen him so many times — he's like the lone ranger, the lone wolf,” the priest said. “If he had asked for help, I would have helped him… He was avoiding any kind of contact.”
Jordan also said he didn't want a thief to “fumble around in a jail cell.”
