Subway Rider Stabs Creep After He Masturbated In Front Of Her

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A gutsy Brooklyn woman turned the tables on a serial subway masturbator early Friday, stabbing the sicko with his own switchblade during a wild brawl aboard the R train.

Oft-arrested suspect Reggie Frank suffered wounds to the chest and arm after targeting the tired woman as she headed home to Brooklyn after a long night at work, cops and family members said.

The 42-year-old victim escaped unharmed, although she was physically and emotionally wiped out after gaining the upper hand against her assailant.

“She’s been sleeping more than anything else,” the woman’s sister told the Daily News. “I am beside myself. How would it make you feel if that was your sibling?”

The terrifying encounter began when the victim fell asleep aboard the Bay Ridge-bound subway — and awoke to find the 47-year-old man masturbating in front of her, police said.

When the woman screamed, Frank zapped her in the face with pepper spray and pulled the deadly folding knife from his pocket, cops said.

He lunged at her with the blade when the train stopped at the 36th St. station in Sunset Park around 2 a.m., with the woman dodging the knife as she fought for her life.

Their tussle spilled onto the platform, where she gained control of the weapon and stabbed Frank in the arm and chest, cops said. She also suffered cuts to her hands that required 15 stitches.

“There was someone on the platform who helped her,” said the woman’s sister.

The victim, through her nephew, declined to comment.

During Frank’s arraignment, his lawyer, William O. Fowlkes, assured the court that it was the woman, not his client, who was the aggressor.

“My client was attacked,” Fowlkes said. He speculated that the woman became startled by Frank, who works for a moving company, and became violent.

“Maybe she woke up and thought he was coming for her purse,” he said. “She saw a guy a little too close.”

Frank’s criminal history includes more than 20 prior arrests, including two within three weeks in 2015 for masturbating in front of women riding the subway trains.

He was also busted twice in 2006 for exposing himself in the Brooklyn subways — including one case where a witness fell to the tracks “in a state of uncontrollable laughter (and) suffered a fractured skull,” court documents said.

In February 2006, he attacked a woman who rejected his sexual advances.

He was accused of assault, weapon possession and public lewdness in the latest attack, police said.