Brooklyn

Police are asking for the public’s help in tracking down the crook pictured above who has posed as a utility worker and extorted elderly homeowners in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Cops said he has posed as a worker with the city Department of Environmental Protection who tells homeowners he needs access to their water meter or other utilities.

Once inside, he threatens to turn off water service unless he’s paid an undisclosed cash fee.

Cops said the man has struck six times over the past two months, targeting elderly, female homeowners.

Police said the crook, believed to be in his 40s, stands about 6 feet tall and wears a black baseball cap, a business shirt and tie, and carries a black messenger bag, police said.

A man was found shot dead in his Canarsie basement apartment yesterday morning, beneath the day-care center his mother owns and operates.

Barry Haynes, 28, was found just before 11 a.m. with a fatal head shot in his apartment on East 93rd Street near Avenue K, beneath the Alice in Wonderland Day Care Center, sources said.

There was no immediate indication the shooting had anything to do with the business owned by the victim’s mother.

Queens

Police busted a gunman who shot and seriously wounded a man in a South Jamaica drug deal gone bad, cops said.

Antonia Dean, 21, was arrested Thursday in the attack on a 23-year-old man shot eight times at close range on 116th Avenue near 165th Street shortly after 3 a.m. on Sept. 18, police said.

The victim took shots to the face, chest and shoulder.

Dean was charged with attempted murder, assault and weapons possession, cops said.

An apologetic construction worker confessed to a theft after cops grabbed him for swiping a teen’s cellphone in Ozone Park.

The 15-year-old victim had been walking his brother to school shortly after 8 a.m. Wednesday when Kapiledo Etwaroo, 20 stopped them at 109th Avenue near Lefferts Boulevard and asked to use the teen’s cellphone, sources said.

The teen handed over the phone, then Etwaroo refused to return it and told him, “If you want your phone back you have to fight me for it,” according to court papers.

He walked away with the phone and the boy called police.

Armed with a description, cops grabbed Etwaroo nearby.

When confronted, he told cops, “I did take it. I made a mistake, I’m sorry.”

Etwaroo was arrested and charged with petit larceny, harassment and possession of stolen property, said spokesman for the DA Richard Brown.

Staten Island

A mugger used a different technique to get his message across during a robbery at the Annadale train station Thursday.

Martin Rodriguez, 16, allegedly grabbed a 17-year-old from behind shortly after 1 a.m., sources said.

He held the young man in a chokehold, then handed him a handwritten note reading, “Give me your money and your cellphone or I’ll shoot you,” according to court papers.

The victim pulled a can of Mace and sprayed Rodriguez in the face, and the thug fled empty-handed, sources said.

Armed with a description, cops arrested Rodriguez nearby on charges of attempted robbery and menacing, authorities said.

A woman turned in her husband and his illegal gun after he allegedly threatened to kill her in their Stapleton home.

Ismael Alonzo, 33, had been arguing with his wife in their home on Rosewood Place near Cebra Avenue shortly after 7:30 a.m. Thursday when he pulled the weapon and threatened to shoot her.

She later called cops, and when they arrived she led them to a bedroom closet where they found an illegal, loaded, 9 mm handgun.

Alonzo was arrested and charged with weapons possession and harassment, authorities said.