A homeless sex offender parolee with a long criminal history arrested for an unprovoked slap attack on a 20-year-old NYU student was nabbed in a vacant penthouse apartment in a university-owned building — with belongings stolen from his unsuspecting neighbors, prosecutors say. A day after allegedl y slapping NYU student Amelia Lewis on the buttocks as she walked to class in Greenwich Village Monday morning, cops found suspect James Rizzo holed up six blocks away in a penthouse apartment in Washington Square Village. Lewis’ account of the attack went viral after she posted herself speaking out on TikTok. The NYU-owned building where Rizzo, 45, was caught houses a large number of faculty and a small number of graduate students as well as some tenants not affiliated with the school at all. The building on W. 3rd St. and LaGuardia Place near the heart of campus has a doorman but because of the mix of residents does not scan IDs. Surveillance footage shows her attacker running up from behind. (X/AmeliaLewi33832) When cops busted into the penthouse to arrest Rizzo they found him with items he pilfered from six neighbors in four apartments in the building he had snuck into as his victims slept, prosecutors said during the suspect’s shocking arraignment late Wednesday. Pilfered possessions included a yoga mat, pillow, backpacks, headphones, a suitcase, and several laptops, one of which was still on and police were able to track to the penthouse apartment, officials said. Rent on the apartments range from $1,298 to $1,527 per month, depending on the size. Rizzo has an extensive criminal history that stretches all the way back to the 1990s, when he stabbed a 74-year-old woman in the face during a burglary in Canarsie, Brooklyn, officials said. Rizzo, who also lived in Canarsie at the time, cut his way through a screen window at the E. 83rd St. home on June 13, 1997, and punched and stabbed his victim in the head before ransacking the place. A neighbor found the bloodied victim sprawled out on the floor, cops said at the time. Cops quickly arrested Rizzo and hit him with a slew of charges including attempted murder. He ultimately pleaded guilty to burglary and was sentenced to up to 54 months in prison. The woman he attacked moved out of New York after the attack to Louisville, Ky., to be with her family. She died in 2013. Rizzo was paroled from prison on September 5 after serving 13 months on a sex abuse case where he groped a woman. Late Wednesday, Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Jeffrey Gershuny agreed to prosecutors’ request that Rizzo be held without bail for allegedly attacking Lewis, the burglaries prosecutors say he committed in the university-owned building and for allegedly shoving Texas tourist Jana Brazell face first into a plate glass window on Fifth Ave. in Midtown on Thanksgiving night. Jana Dianne Brazell was slammed head first into a store plate glass window allegedly by James Rizzo in an unhinged assault. (Obtained by Daily News) He was also arraigned an assault in 2023 where he allegedly hit a stranger walking his dog in the face with a Poland Spring bottle. An officer involved in the case “luckily identifies him after nearly two years after he evaded law enforcement for this incident,” a prosecutor said during Rizzo’s arraignment. Brazell had come to the city to visit family and watch the Thanksgiving Day parade when Rizzo jumped her, she told the Daily News. “We were walking along the street when out of nowhere he just jumped in my face,” she said. “He was shouting, ‘Our whole society is just a f—ing joke! Isn’t it?’” “He kept saying it over and over,” Brazell added. “He said it at least four times.” The Texan said she was trying to get away from Rizzo when he suddenly attacked. “He took just a step back and I thought he was leaving,” she said. “The next thing I know, I was slammed face-first into a plate-glass window.“ The attack left Brazell with a jagged cut on her forehead requiring six stitches plus some nasty bruises. A few days later, Rizzo was allegedly caught on surveillance camera approaching Lewis and slapping the young college student on the buttocks. He then grabbed her by the hair and pushed her to the ground, prosecutors said. Lewis shared surveillance footage of the attack on social media. “As I’m walking with my headphones on listening to music, I feel something slap me so hard on my ass. So hard,” Lewis said in a video posted to TikTok on Monday. Amelia Lewis, 20, was attacked from behind near Waverly Place in Greenwich Village on Monday. (X/AmeliaLewi33832) “Right when I turned around, he grabbed my f—ing hair like this and yanked me and threw me to the ground. My headphones went f—ing flying. I was on the ground, and I just saw him bolting down Waverly.” The student described the assault as “the scariest experience of my life.” “I just really want to emphasize how not OK this is. I am a student at NYU,” Lewis said in another video posted to X. “I should not be scared to be walking the street to go to my 9:30 a.m. class. These people are disgusting, and they should not be able to walk around the street freely targeting girls.” Prosecutors charged Rizzo with persistent sexual abuse and assault for slapping Lewis and assault for the attacks on Brazell and the dog walker in 2023. He’s also facing multiple counts of burglary for breaking into the neighboring apartments. Rizzo’s other past crimes include arrests for forcible touching in 2022 and 2023, a hate-fueled criminal mischief arrest in 2018 and a drunk driving arrest in 2007, prosecutors said. Legal Aid, which represented Rizzo at his arraignment, did not immediately return a request for comment. With Emma Seiwell and Rocco Parascandola ...read more read less