MANHATTAN — Police have charged a suspect in connection with an Upper East Side groping spree the NYPD thinks claimed at least a dozen victims.
Jose Alfredo Perez Hernandez, 18, from Queens, was charged with sexual abuse, burglary and forcible touching for three of the incidents that have terrified women on the Upper East Side since May, police said.
Hernandez is accused of attacking a woman on July 13, when the 31-year-old victim was approached from behind by a man who allegedly reached under her skirt and grabbed her buttocks, according to the NYPD.
He was also charged with burglary in relation to a July 17 incident, when he allegedly followed a 24-year-old woman from the subway station and into her building after he asked her for directions.
The suspect fled after the victim realized she was being followed and confronted him, police said. Surveillance tape shows him pointing on the subway platform.
Hernandez was charged with forcible touching and sexual abuse in an incident on Aug. 3 on the northbound 6 train, between 51st and 68th street, when a 27-year-old woman was approached and sexually assaulted, according to police.
He was arrested at his home in Corona, Queens on Tuesday morning and brought to Harlem's Special Victims Unit for witness identification line-ups.
The department received a tip from an Upper East Side building superintendent who said he recognized the man in photos circulated by police as someone who worked at a café in his building, police sources told DNAinfo.
Workers at Antonucci, an Italian restaurant at 170 East 81st St., near Third Avenue, said that the 5-foot-2 Hernandez was a dishwasher there until two or three weeks ago, when police started circulating surveillance video images of a pint-sized groper estimated to be between 4-foot-11 and 5-foot-3.
Hernandez worked in the cafe for six months before quitting, Francesco Antonucci told the New York Times. Antonucci and other staff members that worked with Hernandez at the cafe seemed incredulous after he was brought in for questioning.
“He was a very sweet kid," the restaurant's owner, Francesco Antonucci, told the New York Times. "He was like the mascot of the staff. He was the youngest, littlest.”
Although he and his employees had recognized him in television broadcasts of the police's surveillance footage, Antonucci did not immediately call the police because he thought he had little information to share, he told the Times.
“We didn’t have his phone number, his address — we didn’t feel we had enough information,” Antonucci told the paper.
City officials expressed relief that police had a suspect in relation to the incidents.
In at least one incident, the groper attempted to rape his victim, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said in press conference earlier this month.
"I am glad that the NYPD appears to have caught the groper," City Councilman Jessica Lappin said in a statement. "Let’s hope this pint-sized pervert is off the streets for good."
