Robert De Niro’s New York City rental home burglarized

Robert De Niro was the target of a robbery that occurred at his rented apartment in New York City this week, the actor’s publicist has acknowledged. 

Following reports of the movie star’s encounter with an intruder who allegedly broke into his townhome on Manhattan’s Upper East Side early on Monday morning, Stan Rosenfield, a public relations representative for De Niro, issued a brief response noting that the Oscar winner would not be commenting further on the incident.

“We are not making any statement at this time about the robbery at the temporary rental home of Robert De Niro,” Rosenfield said in the written response to Monday’s break-in reports obtained by CBS News.

New York City Police said officers had been tracking the suspect — whom they say is a suspected serial burglar — and saw her force her way into the townhome via a basement door around 2:45 a.m., according to the Associated Press. The AP reported she was arrested inside the home while allegedly trying to steal Christmas presents, and De Niro was home at the time and came downstairs while the suspect was being arrested.

The alleged suspect’s criminal record reportedly includes 17 prior arrests since the beginning of this year, with an arrest on Dec. 13 being the most recent, according to CBS New York. She was apparently taken into custody for an alleged incident that took place more than one month earlier, on Oct. 23, when she was accused of breaking into St. Patrick’s Roman Catholic Church in Astoria, Queens, and taking $700, the station reported.