The man busted for knifing a dozing 56-year-old Manhattan subway rider in the head during an unprovoked, blood-soaked attack had just been arrested for slashing his mother three days earlier, prosecutors said Tuesday.
Suspect Geovalny Alcantara, 20, was covered in blood and had the knife in his hand when cops saw him exiting a No. 1 train at the 145th St. station in West Harlem Monday at 6:15 a.m., prosecutors said.
An officer was in the next train car when he was alerted to the attack and saw Alcantara exit the train.
Alcantara is accused of stabbing the sleepy straphanger seated next to him repeatedly in the head and face. The victim told police he woke up to find Alcantara yelling at him. A few seconds later, the man began stabbing him.
Prosecutors said the attack was “unprovoked.”
“He stabbed the victim multiple times about the head and face on the subway,” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Anjali Puri said during Alcantara’s arraignment Monday evening.
When the officers in the next car saw Alcantara, he had “blood on his pants, sweatshirt and hands,” Puri said.
“[He] proceeded to drop a knife to the ground after an eyewitness pointed the defendant out as the perpetrator,” the prosecutor explained.
The victim lost a great deal of blood and was rushed to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he needed stitches and staples to close his wounds, plus a transfusion, Puri said.
On July 11, just three days before Monday’s attack, Alcantara was arrested on misdemeanor assault charges for slashing his 40-year-old mother three times in the left arm during a dispute in the Bronx, cops said.
He was released after his arraignment in that case since none of the charges he faced were bail eligible, officials said.
Alcantara has two other arrests for weapons possession and fare evasion, cops said.
After Monday’s arrest, cops charged Alcantara with attempted murder and assault. A judge ordered him held on $50,000 bail.
A call to his attorney, Daniel Lynch, for comment wasn’t immediately returned.
