Burglar Arrested For 'Stealing Christmas Presents' From Robert De Niro's NYC Home

A female burglar was arrested by the New York Police Department for "stealing Christmas presents" at Robert De Niro's rented Manhattan home early Monday.

Shanice Aviles, 30, was caught red-handed rifling through the 79-year-old actor's Upper East Side townhouse and fiddling with the iPad and presents under De Niro's Christmas tree, the New York Post reported, citing police and unnamed law enforcement sources.

Aviles allegedly crept down a stairwell that leads to the "The Godfather" star's basement at around 2:30 a.m. that day before forcing her way inside using a pipe or metal bar, police and the sources told the outlet.

The NYPD's 19th Precinct Public Safety team had been monitoring Aviles, who is a "know burglar" and has at least 26 prior arrests, according to the sources.

Prior to breaking into De Niro's townhouse, the woman was caught trying to open doors to commercial buildings in the neighborhood, the sources said.

Police reportedly followed Aviles, and at around 2:45 a.m., officers arrested her inside a residence while she was attempting to remove property, a spokesperson for the NYPD's deputy commissioner of public information told CNN.

"She was stealing Christmas presents," a police official told the Post.

De Niro was sleeping on another floor of the $69,000-a-month rental home, while his daughter was in her bedroom at the time, according to the outlet's sources. No one inside the residence was aware that the woman had entered the home, they added.

The basement door of the residence showed signs of forced entry, the spokesperson told CNN.

Aviles was charged with burglary, adding to her 16 arrests this year alone. She was awaiting arraignment Monday night.

As she was being led out of the Lenox Hill stationhouse in handcuffs Monday afternoon, Aviles insisted that she was innocent, according to the Post.

"I didn't go to Robert De Niro's house," she told reporters. "I didn't murder anybody."

Prior to her most recent arrest, Aviles was arraigned on charges connected to two Queens burglaries just last Wednesday and released without bail, records obtained by the outlet showed.

De Niro was spotted by reporters Monday afternoon. When a reporter asked about his condition, he said that he was "OK" and that he was doing "good," according to the Post.

But after being questioned about the incident at his townhouse, the lifelong New Yorker responded, "You can read about it in the paper."

The outlet noted that crime scene cops continued to visit the site, and a locksmith changed the locks of the home.

In an email to the Post, De Niro's publicist acknowledged that a robbery occurred at the Oscar winner's "temporary rental" property on Manhattan's Upper East Side but noted that the actor would not be commenting further on the incident.

De Niro relocated to the property in upstate New York at the height of the pandemic after selling his West Village townhouse, which he purchased for $9.5 million in 2012 and resided in for 37 years.