A panhandler from the Bronx was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court on Monday evening on a criminal complaint charging him with attempted murder in the second degree and other crimes for allegedly stabbing a 23-year-old woman inside the Jamaica-Van Wyck subway station on Sunday night.
Randol Contreras, 24, of 241st Street in the Bronx, is accused of demanding money from his victim, and, when she refused to comply, he stabbed her multiple times in her torso. The victim was heading home from work at the E train station on the border of Richmond Hill and Kew Gardens at around 8:30 p.m. when Contreras approached her on the mezzanine level and demanded cash. When the victim told Contreras that she had no money to give him, he pulled out a knife and stabbed her multiple times in her abdomen and then slashed her across the face, according to the criminal complaint.
Contreras threw the bloody knife in a trash can before two good Samaritans wrestled him to the ground and held him down until police from the 102nd Precinct in Richmond Hill and Transit District 20 arrived at the crime and took him into custody. EMS responded to the crime scene and rushed the victim to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where she was listed in serious but stable condition, police said. The knife was recovered from the trash can, according to the criminal complaint.
“We have charged Randol Contreras with attempted murder,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz said. “A young woman is fighting for her life after being stabbed in an unprovoked attack as she exited the subway system. This defendant allegedly asked the victim for money and then stabbed the woman multiple times in the torso, leaving her with a punctured liver and lung, and slashed her across the face.”
Contreras was also charged with assault in the first degree, two counts of attempted robbery in the first degree and criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth degree. Contreras was remanded into custody without bail and ordered to return to court on Friday, Aug. 2.
“Millions of New Yorkers rely on our mass transit system, and we will aggressively prosecute those that commit violence on our subways,” Katz said.
