CROOK' NEEDS A CLUE

RETURNS FOR WALLET

By CAROLYN SALAZAR and JAMIE SCHRAM

HATE TO INTRUDE . . . Yaakov Kanelsky shows the window in his Brooklyn apartment where an alleged burglar begged for the wallet he'd dropped inside.

Last updated: 7:46 am
July 14, 2008
Posted: 3:43 am
July 14, 2008

A hapless burglar who swiped more than $200 from a Brooklyn apartment was back within moments begging to return the stolen cash - in exchange for the wallet he left behind.

Victor Marin, 20, broke into the 40th Street building in Borough Park last Thursday and made off with the money, but left his billfold - complete with his identification - on the victim's bed, according to police sources.

The bewildered victim, Yaakov Kanelsky, 49, arrived home from a shopping trip around 1:30 p.m. to see the accused thief at his first-floor kitchen window.

"There was someone knocking on my window, and I asked him, 'What do you want? Why are you here?' And he said, he told me, 'I left my wallet inside your house,' " Kanelsky told The Post.

"Why were you inside my house?" a perplexed Kanelsky asked.

"He told me he needed to use the bathroom."

When Kanelsky asked the next logical question - why the intruder needed to use a bathroom in someone else's home - Marin allegedly replied, "It doesn't matter. I need my wallet. I forgot my wallet. It's in your bedroom."

Kanelsky, a retired rabbi who is originally from Israel, called 911 while Marin allegedly ran from the kitchen window to the apartment's front door.

"If you give me my wal let, I'll give you back your money," the intruder hollered through the door.

"What money?" asked Kanelsky. "I didn't even know any money was missing."

The absent-minded burglar flashed a wad of bills through the peephole.

A quick check of the bedroom confirmed that Kanelsky's cash - $93 in singles and $125 in larger bills - was missing from his dresser.

Instead, the victim found a wallet filled with credit cards, photos and cash - and a pair of sunglasses.

So Kanelsky told the man on the other side of the door to return his cash, which he promptly did, sliding the $125 under the door.

But the $93 wad of singles was too bulky to push under the door, so Marin allegedly began stuffing the bills little by little through the small crack. That's when the cops showed up.

Marin was quickly picked up in a nearby yard and charged with burglary, petty larceny and possession of stolen property.

Kanelsky said he believed the thief had entered via the kitchen window - which he had habitually left open since he moved into the apartment seven years ago.

"I just thought this whole thing was crazy," said Kanelsky.