The serial burglar accused of breaking into Robert De Niro’s Manhattan townhouse allegedly pulled off another brazen crime spree after posting bail and being sprung from jail, The Post has learned.
Shanice Aviles, who was allegedly caught red-handed trying to steal the Oscar-winning actor’s Christmas presents in December, was released from Rikers Island on May 3, according to Department of Correction records.
Since then, she’s been charged in at least two more thefts, including one in which she allegedly snuck into a Columbia University building and slugged a security guard.
The first case took place just a month after Aviles was back on the streets. The career crook was charged with stealing $416 worth of merchandise from a TJ Maxx on Sixth Avenue near West 19th Street on June 5, cops said.
She was hauled into Manhattan Criminal Court in that petit larceny case June 7, with the judge setting bail at $10,000 cash or a $5,000 bond, which Aviles later posted, according to law-enforcement sources.
Then on July 8, she was busted again after allegedly sneaking into Columbia’s Teachers College in Morningside Heights through a window, police said.
A security guard patrolling the building at around 6:30 p.m. spotted tools sitting near an open window that should have been locked shut — and then found Aviles inside the building, filling up her bag with various items, according to a criminal complaint.
When that guard and others tried to stop her, she allegedly flipped out, punching him in the face, flipping over furniture in the room and stepping on his $600 glasses, breaking them, the complaint against her states.
Aviles claimed she’d gone into the building because she needed to use the restroom, according to the court document.
Cops said they found a laptop and electronic tablet in her bag.
She was charged with burglary and criminal mischief, and a judge sent her to Rikers without bail at her arraignment the following day, the DA’s office said.
The details in that case are similar to those of the Dec. 18, 2022 break-in at De Niro’s Upper East Side pad, where prosecutors alleged Aviles used a knife and “crowbar-like tool” to force her way into the basement as the actor slept upstairs.
Aviles already had at least 26 arrests on her rap sheet — including 16 over the prior year — when she was arrested inside the star’s $69,000-a-month rented townhouse.
Officers from the NYPD’s 19th Precinct Public Safety team had been tailing Aviles after recognizing her as a “known burglar” as she allegedly tried several doors before reaching De Niro’s home at around 2 a.m.
Cops allegedly found her inside, fumbling with the actor’s iPad.
She was charged with burglary and possession of burglar tools.
Manhattan prosecutors had cautioned at a hearing back on Dec. 20 that Aviles would likely break the law again if she was released back to the streets — with the judge then setting her bail at $40,000 cash or $120,000 bond.
It wasn’t clear if Aviles or someone else had paid her bail in both cases.
New York Defender Services, the public defense legal firm that represents her, did not respond to requests for comment.
Following her December arrest, Aviles told The Post she was a De Niro fan and wanted to apologize to the actor.
“I love his movies, all of them!” she said. “My mother, my grandmother, my grandfather, we all used to watch them.”
Her next court date is Oct. 11.
Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
