The CVS employee charged with stabbing a serial shoplifter to death during a scuffle inside a Midtown Manhattan store allegedly told cops he only did it because the homeless perp repeatedly slugged him in the face, according to a criminal complaint.
Scotty Enoe, 46, was arraigned on murder and criminal possession Friday afternoon after he allegedly knifed 50-year-old homeless man, Charles Brito, inside the store a day earlier.
The employee confessed to the knifing when cops arrived on the scene in the early hours of Thursday — but Enoe insisted it was in self defense, the complaint says.
“I did not stab him over CVS products,” Enoe told responding officers. “I stabbed him over punching me. Look what he did to my face.”
Prosecutors allege Enoe stabbed Brito in the chest eight times during the struggle.
“The deceased punched the defendant several times but the defendant brought a knife to what otherwise was a fist fight,” Assistant District Attorney, Julie Noble, said during the arraignment.
“He took the knife from his pocket and stabbed the deceased Mr. Brito eight times in the chest,” she continued. “One of those wounds was deep enough to penetrate his heart and the other his liver. He fell to the ground bleeding outside and bled to death.”
Enoe’s defense attorney doubled down on the self-defense notion, telling the court the Brito had come in swinging.
“My client was merely working stocking the shelves in the freezer area and this person came in, he swung at my client and pushed my client and a fistfight occurred,” the attorney, Adam Freedman, said.
Enoe, who had been working at the CVS as a stock person for just under a year, also had prior run-ins with the would-be thief, the attorney added.
“The deceased in this case, your honor, was a serial shoplifter in this location and had prior verbal run-ins with my client, as well as an apparently long history of shoplifting in other locations,” he said.
Outside court, the attorney said Brito had made repeated threats to kill his client when Enoe had previously verbally confronted him over stealing items from the store at least four to five other times.
“He had threatened my client on previous occasions with ‘I’m gonna kill you’ when my client was verbally trying to stop him from stealing from the store,” Freedman said.
“On this particular occasion there was no verbal interaction at first. What happened is this guy came in and basically saw my client and start pushing him and swinging on him.”
The attorney said Enoe regularly used a knife to cut open boxes during his shift.
“I don’t know the nature of the knife. I do know that part of what was his job was was essentially opening up a lot of boxes and I believe he used the knife for that,” he said. “Whether or not he had it for other purposes I don’t know.”
Enoe’s bail was set at $100,000 after the judge rejected the defense attorney’s request for a reasonable bond.
The CVS fatal saga is the third apparent vigilante slay in the Big Apple in as many months.
Ex-Marine Daniel Penny was arrested – and has since pleaded not guilty to manslaughter – over Jordan Neely’s subway chokehold death on an F train on May 1.
Meanwhile, Jordan Williams – a 20-year-old straphanger – had his manslaughter charges dropped by a grand jury after he was charged with stabbing ex-con Devictor Ouedraogo to death during a melee on a Brooklyn J train on June 12.