Knife-Wielding Subway Masturbator Gets 10 Years For BK Attack: DA

SUNSET PARK, BROOKLYN — A New Jersey man who brutally attacked a woman when she found him masturbating on a Brooklyn subway train will spend 10 years in prison, prosecutors announced.

Reggie Frank, of Newark, was sentenced Thursday for the February 2018 attack, where he pepper-sprayed, slashed and bit a 42-year-old woman who woke up to find his genitals exposed across from her on an R train in Sunset Park.

Frank, who had been arrested 26 times before the incident, was convicted of second-degree assault, two counts of third-degree weapons charged and first-degree public lewdness. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 10 years post-release supervision, prosecutors said.

“This defendant’s deviant and violent behavior endangers all New Yorkers, especially those who depend on the subway," Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said. "The fact that the defendant has 20 prior convictions related to public lewdness is ample evidence that he is willing to disregard the law, the risk of incarceration and the harm to society.”

Frank was masturbating on the R train across from a 42-year-old woman who had fallen asleep on her way home from work when she woke up and saw him around 1:50 a.m. on February 23, 2018, prosecutors said.

When the woman asked what he was doing, he emptied a canister of pepper spray into her eyes, pulled out a folding knife and started to attack her, prosecutors said.

Frank held the knife to the woman's temple, using his other hand to hold her head in place, and cut her hand as she tried to fight back. He then punched the woman multiple times in the face, dug his finger into her eye and bit her hand so hard he drew blood, prosectutors said.

Police at the time said the woman was able to turn the knife on Frank at one point and stab him in the left arm and torso, but it wasn't until the train pulled into the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue station that Frank was pulled off the woman by a Good Samaritan and the police were called, prosecutors said

The woman was sent to Lutheran Hospital for lacerations to her fingers, including a gash that required 15 stitches and caused permanent nerve damage. She also suffered a corneal erosion in her eye that continues to affect her vision, prosecutors said.