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A Brooklyn dad died of an apparent medical episode in the back of a private cab Tuesday evening — shortly after a violent duo pummeled him and robbed him of his chain, cops said.
Michael Shelonchik, 53, was riding inside a cab around 6 p.m. on Neptune Avenue near West 5th Street in Brighton Beach when two muggers stormed up to the car, opened the door and began punching him in the face and head, authorities said.
They then ripped his chain off his neck and bolted, cops said.
Sheloncik asked the driver to take him home, but he appeared to have suffered a medical episode along the way, at Avenue Y and East 3rd Street, according to police and sources.
He was rushed to Maimonides Medical Center, where he died, cops said.
Sheloncik, a Brooklyn native, left behind two grieving daughters, including Taylor, 27, who told The Post she’d never imagine something so devastating happening to her dad.
“This is crazy. I’ve lived in New York my whole life,” Taylor said. “I was born and raised here…I’ve never experienced something like this. My father was born and raised here.”
“He knew the streets like the back of his hands. Never in life could we ever imagine something like this could happen to him.”
Taylor described her dad as “a father every girl could dream of.”
“It sounds cliché, but it is true,” she said. “I feel like you only hear stories about these types of people because just the good die young. He was everything to us. He did everything for us. He was a sole provider, the sole emotional rock, the sole everything.”
“I’m 27 years old and the thought of moving out scared me because it’s like I can’t be without him,” Taylor added. “We do everything together. We eat together every meal, we go grocery shopping together, we go to doctors’ appointments together, we do everything as a unit.”
“We all have the same doctors. We all have the same everything. We are very close. We don’t have a big family. It’s just the four of us — us and my grandma so it’s like we do everything together, you know.”
Sheloncik was passionate about music – especially “rock and soul and Motown” – and used to sell CDs wholesale, his daughter recalled.
Taylor said her dad inspired her, and she’ll never forget his “silliness, his humor, his laugh, the silly little jokes that he made.”
“I am going to miss him more than…..this is indescribable,” she added. “I was just saying to my grandma. I don’t know how to live without him. He’s my life. He taught me everything I know.”
“I speak the way I speak because of him. I walk the way I walk because of him. I talk the way I talk because of him and it’s like somebody took my crutches from beneath me and I’m just left with broken legs and I have to learn how to walk.”
In a desperate plea, Taylor urged Mayor Eric Adams to put an end to the violence.
“This has to stop,” she said. “I don’t know what has to be done but something has to be done. Whatever you’re doing now, do the opposite.”
Meanwhile, Taylor’s 20-year-old sister, Lexi, stood somberly, barely able to collect her thoughts.
“I’m speechless right now,” she said. “It’s a lot to take in.”
A male neighbor who had lived on the block for more than 10 years said he didn’t know the family well but often saw Sheloncik “coming out of his house and talking to his friends.”
“New York is crazy right now – nuts, nuts,” he said. “You never want anything bad to happen to any one, especially when it’s your neighbor. It’s just unfortunate.”
“Even if you see a dead animal it makes you sad, so can you imagine this – especially when you know it could have been prevented,” the neighbor added. “It’s a terrible, terrible thing.”
Shelonchik’s cause of death is under investigation by the city medical examiner’s office.
Surveillance video released by the NYPD Wednesday shows both hooded, masked robbery suspects – who remain at large – walking around on the sidewalk.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call the NYPD’s Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-TIPS (8477) or for Spanish, 1-888-57-PISTA (74782).
The public can also submit their tips by logging onto the CrimeStoppers website at https://crimestoppers.nypdonline.org/, or on X @NYPDTips.
