UPPER EAST SIDE — A Bedford-Stuyvesant man tried to grope a 9-year-old girl on a street corner before the mother intervened and got fondled herself, police said.
Paul Gandall, 65, tried to touch the girl below the waist at the corner of East 83rd Street and Third Avenue at 8:10 p.m. on Monday, according to a criminal complaint.
When the girl's mother saw what was happening, she moved in front of her daughter to stop him and Gandall fondled the mother instead, according to authorities.
Police arrested Gandall soon after the incident, and connected him to a March 11 incident, when he touched a woman's buttocks while she was waiting for a C train inside the West 42nd Street and Eighth Avenue subway station at 6:42 p.m.
The victim told police that she saw him smile and wink at her after he touched her.
Gandall later told police, "I like to touch women, that's my way of letting them know I like them," the complaint states.
He was arraigned for both crimes on Tuesday and charged with attempted sexual abuse in the first degree, sexual abuse, endangering the welfare of a child, and two counts of forcible touching, according to the complaint.
Gandall is being held at Rikers Island on $75,000 bail, pending his next court date on Friday.
His attorney did not immediately return a call for comment on Thursday.
