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A statue of the Blessed Mother has been a staple in a deeply religious section of Williamsburg for more than the last decade.

So when Immaculata Medici, the statue's owner, was told by a neighbor early Saturday morning that the statue's case had been vandalized, she broke down in tears.

"I feel very, very bad. I really do," she said. "I wish they could get these people. I don't mind them walking down the street or whatever but to desecrate people property is just not right. It's just not right."

The words "castrate yourself" were scrawled across the case. Vandals also left a crack in the bottom of the glass, likely the result of trying to get at money that people sometimes leave as an offering. The NYPD is now investigating the incident.

"It's been here 10, maybe 15 years and nobody ever touched it," said Ernie Gentile, another one of the statue's owners. "All of a sudden, that's it. I just took the graffiti off. The cops made me take it off."

The incident comes just after swastikas were found spray painted in several heavily Jewish Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Parishioners at nearby Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church were saddened by the vandalism. Their church has also been victimized in recent years and church-goers said they had a hard time understanding those crimes.

"There's no call for that," said one parishioner. "There's no call for that. At all. That's desecrating a sacred ground. How were you brought up?"

"Desecrate it like it's garbage," said another parishioner. "It's just so uncalled for. It's so hateful and there's nothing anybody can do about it. Except say 'oops, it happened again.'"

The owners say they were already planning to restore the statue but now, in addition to giving it a thorough cleaning and a new paint job, they say they'd like to get it blessed once again by a local priest.