Jose Alfredo Perez Hernandez, 18, was caught for the string of 12 attacks on women in the upper east side section of New York City, after police tracked his cell phone to a Queens apartment. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
Police got a tip that Hernandez was their man from the superintendent at an upper East Side building, sources said.
The super told a friend who is a Transit Bureau cop that he recognized a surveillance photo of the suspect as a man who worked at a cafe in his building.
Cops went to the restaurant and learned Hernandez’s identity.
Co-workers said Hernandez had stopped showing up for work around the time the surveillance images began circulating.
“Last Sunday he told me he was looking for a lawyer,” said kitchen worker Diego Sanchez. “He was worried since the first pictures showed up in the streets.”
Sanchez said Hernandez had talked about skipping town but that co-workers warned him he would be caught.
Another co-worker, who would not give his name, said Hernandez had been with him at a bar at the time of the last reported groping attack and couldn’t have been responsible.
“He was in Queens with me,” the man said. “He would go to bars and he was respectful.”
The groper is suspected of molesting 12 women over the past seven months, mostly on the upper East Side. He would sneak up behind his victims and grab their buttocks, crotch or chest.
Charges were pending against Hernandez as police were contacting the victims for lineups.
