Upper East Side Phone Snatcher Arrested, Police Say

UPPER EAST SIDE, NY — A teenager is facing charges for a robbery that occurred on an Upper East Side street, police said.

Ernesto Jimenez-Santiago, a 19-year-old Harlem resident, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with two counts of robbery for snatching a phone out of a woman's hands, police said.

Jimenez-Santiago and two other men approached a woman walking on East 84th Street near Second Avenue around 5:15 p.m. Sunday and grabbed her cellphone, police said. The three men ran off heading west down East 84th Street, police said.

The woman was not harmed during the robbery, police said.

The other two men who participated in the robbery have not been arrested or charged, police said. All three suspects are described as men with a slim build, police said. One of the men was wearing a red knit cap, a black and gray hooded sweater, blue jeans and white sneakers, another was wearing a gray knit cap, a black hooded jacket, blue jeans and black sneakers and the third was wearing a black hooded sweater, gray sweatpants and black sneakers.

Anyone with information is asked to call the NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477).

Photo by NYPD