High-risk sex offender slashed NYC straphanger with box cutter in homophobic attack: cops
A high-risk sex offender was busted this week for allegedly slashing another man with a box cutter after hurling homophobic comments at him aboard a Manhattan train, authorities said.
Milton Hamlin, 46 – who has 10 prior arrests – was nabbed Tuesday in connection to the 11 p.m. Friday attack on a 27-year-old man riding with a male partner on an uptown A train pulling into the 34th Street – Penn Station hub, police said.
Hamlin lunged at the victim’s face with the sharp weapon after lashing out at him because of his sexuality, cops said.
“They were acting like every other couple on the train,” Lieutenant John Russo of the NYPD’s Detective Bureau told reporters during a Tuesday briefing. “They were just together and Milton Hamlin, for whatever reason, took exception to that.”
The victim raised his hands to protect himself and was cut on his hand between his thumb and index finger, Russo said.
The victim’s gash required four stitches, according to Russo.
The injured man declined to speak to The Post Wednesday, saying he needs “time for myself.”
Hamlin, who was tracked down using facial recognition technology, was charged with assault and menacing, both as hate crimes, authorities said. His arraignment was pending Wednesday.
Hamlin was added to the sex offender registry after a 2011 Brooklyn conviction for attempting to lure a 16-year-old boy – who was known to him – into a vehicle or building to commit a crime, records show.
He served about a year and a half in state prison before he was released in July of 2013, according to State Corrections records.
Hamlin also served more than a year behind bars – from April of 2007 to September of 2008 – on a second-degree assault conviction.
He has also been arrested for grand larceny, grand larceny auto, robbery and possession of stolen property in the past, Russo said.
In another recent attack targeting a gay couple, two 36-year-old men were walking together on Broadway near 33rd Street in Astoria around 7:30 p.m. Feb. 28 when four young-looking bullies shouted an anti-gay slur before pelting the couple with unspecified “hard objects,” authorities said.
Then, a member of the violent group pummeled one of the victims in the face, causing swelling and bruising, cops said.
No arrests have been made in that case.
Meanwhile, subway crime has spiked nearly 20% compared to the same time frame from last year, according to NYPD data.
On Wednesday, an MTA conductor was randomly whacked in the head with a glass bottle by a stranger in the Bronx — an hour after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced she will flood the subway system with National Guardsmen to thwart the crime surge.
And on Tuesday, a straphanger was thumped in the back of the head with a metal object in Queens, and another rider was whacked with an umbrella on the Upper East Side, police said.
