Cops nab thief who swiped gold-plated rose from Manhattan church’s 9/11

NEW YORK — Cops have arrested the man they say swiped a $3,000 gold-plated rose from a 9/11 memorial at a Midtown church.

Members of the New York Police Department’s Manhattan Warrant Squad grabbed Deikel Alcantara, 21, for Wednesday’s theft at the Church of St. Francis of Assisi on West 31st Street near Seventh Avenue, down the block from Penn Station, cops said.

Alcantara was taken into custody in Midtown at about 8 p.m. Friday and charged with grand larceny. Alcantara’s father helped police track the thorny thief down, police sources said.

His arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court was pending Saturday. The rose he stole from the church wasn’t immediately recovered.

Alcantara was apprehended hours after police released his mugshot and asked the public’s help locating him.

He was caught on surveillance cameras swiping the rose from the church around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, cops said.

The metal flower served as the centerpiece of a 9/11 memorial honoring those who died in the terrorist attack, with the rose rising from pieces of twisted steel taken from the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

The church’s former longtime pastor, the Rev. Mychal Judge, was a Fire Department chaplain who was crushed by falling rubble at Ground Zero while praying for victims and rescuers after the attack.

Rev. Brian Jordan, the church’s pastor, said staffers knew Alcantara, who had asked him to leave the church on several occasions, including twice on the day of the theft.

He hopes Alcantara receives “the psychiatric care he needs,” Rev. Jordan told the Daily News Thursday.

“It wasn’t welded in,” Jordan said of the golden rose. “It was inserted in. You can easily break it free. [A] lady yelled at him, but he took off anyway. He was carrying it like it was a bag of groceries.”

The pastor called it “an act of desecration.”

Alcantara was arrested in Manhattan on Oct. 27 on charges that included petty larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, and unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

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The Manhattan DA’s office asked for bail, but a judge released him with no bail, court records show.

On Nov. 9 he was arrested again for an assault he committed in Manhattan on Oct. 24. He was released on Nov. 15, five days before the rose theft, after paying a $3,000 bail, officials said.

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