The Manhattan CVS employee charged with fatally knifing a serial shoplifter allegedly told cops he did it out of self defense — as it was revealed the homeless thief was busted stealing from another store just days before his death.
Scotty Enoe, 46, was pummeled by Charles Brito without provocation inside the Midtown CVS just before 12:30 a.m. Thursday, after Brito swiped a container of creamer and Gatorade, according to Enoe’s lawyer and police sources.
Enoe, who suffers from sickle cell anemia and has no prior criminal history, has had run-ins with Brito before, the lawyer said.
“Apparently, there has been about four or five other contacts between my client and this particular guy. None of them resulted in a physical altercation, however, there were words exchanged that started with, ‘Don’t steal stuff from our store,’” said the attorney, Adam Freedman, after Enoe was arraigned on murder and manslaughter charges in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“On multiple prior occasions, this guy says, ‘I’m gonna kill you, I’m gonna kill you.’ It’s my understanding that before this incident there were basically no words exchanged. It was a walk up and this guy [Brito] initiated physical contact.”
Brito, 50, began wailing on Enoe, who then stabbed Brito eight times, piercing the thief’s heart and liver, according to a criminal complaint.
The worker, who had only been working the midnight shift at CVS less than a year, allegedly told cops: “I did not stab him over CVS products. I stabbed him over [him] punching me. Look what he did to my face.”
Enoe, who was taken to the hospital with contusions to the face, is charged with murder, manslaughter and two counts of weapons possession. Cops allegedly found a blood-soaked folding knife and brass knuckles on him. Bail was set at $100,000.
Freedman said Enoe may have had the knife on him because he was opening up boxes at work.
Enoe’s mother, Lucille, said her son was a dedicated employee who took on multiple jobs while battling his debilitating rare blood disorder.
“He acted in self-defense. He did what he had to do,” Lucille, 72, told The Post, adding that her son offered up his side of the story when he called her following his arrest.
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.
The scourge of shoplifting has ravaged Big Apple shops in the first half of 2023 — with 29,181 complaints made, compared to 17,297 over the same period pre-pandemic in 2019.
Bail can no longer be set in misdemeanor and some nonviolent felony cases under the state’s lax 2019 bail reform law.
So far this year, however, there has been a nearly 6% dip in retail theft complaints versus the same period last year, according to City Hall data Friday.
Brito had racked up 16 unsealed arrests, mostly for petit larceny. Just four days before his death, he’d been busted for stealing from another of the drug store’s locations — and was set to be sentenced next week for a slew of other brazen incidents.
He was most recently picked up on July 2 on a petit larceny charge after snatching four Monster energy drinks and seven Starbucks Frappuccinos from a CVS store in Upper Manhattan, according to sources.
The serial offender returned to the store two hours later to fill up a suitcase with $125 worth of items, including Oreos, Pepsi, M&Ms, Hershey’s Kisses and more Starbucks drinks, the sources said.
The circumstances surrounding his release from custody in that incident weren’t immediately known.
Prior to his death, Brito was due in a Manhattan court on July 10 to be sentenced to three years’ probation after taking a plea deal that lumped two earlier incidents together.
He had been nabbed targeting the same CVS in Upper Manhattan on June 13 after pilfering energy drinks from the store’s fridges, according to a criminal complaint. Brito was slapped with a petit larceny charge in that incident and a judge subsequently set his bail at $5,000 cash, records show.
But the matter ended up being wiped on June 21 when the case was bundled together with a robbery arrest from Jan. 17 during which he stole a woman’s purse in broad daylight on Sixth Avenue and 56th Street.
As part of the deal, he pleaded guilty to petit larceny and was released ahead of next week’s scheduled sentencing.
Just one day after being set free, the homeless perp continued on his rampage by hitting up a CVS on the Upper West Side where he made off with 24 packets of toothpaste and more than a dozen razors and blades, a complaint shows.
Brito also had a history of acting erratically in public.
Back on March 26, he was taken to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after acting aggressive and violent on South Street in the Financial District, sources said.
He was also arrested on May 12 for criminal possession of a weapon after acting out on a 1 train in Manhattan. When police got him off the subway, one of the officers spotted a boxcutter in Brito’s pocket, according to sources.
An imitation pistol was also discovered in his backpack and drug paraphernalia was found in another pocket, the sources added.
He had been trying to steal Gatorade and a container of creamer from the CVS at Broadway and West 49th Street when he got into the fatal scuffle with Enoe, cops and sources said.
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 his 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.”
Police sources noted that Enoe is 5’9 and 150 pounds, while Brito was two inches taller and 40 pounds heavier.
Freedman, the defense attorney, doubled down on the self-notion, telling the judge his client was “merely working stocking the shelves in the freezer area” when Brito came in swinging.
Lucille, Enoe’s mom, called for charges to be dropped altogether.
“My son is a very good person,” she said. “My son never gets involved in this situation before. He’s a very dedicated worker.”
Asked to comment on Brito’s lengthy rap sheet, she added, “Maybe Scotty is the unlucky one.
“They should have put this guy away somewhere a long time ago. Just keep him off of the street.”
Additional reporting by Nolan Hicks, Craig McCarthy and Joe Marino
