A high-risk sex offender was arrested this week after allegedly hurling homophobic comments and slashing another man with a box cutter on a Manhattan train, authorities said.
Milton Hamlin, 46, who has been arrested 10 times in the past, was arrested Friday at 11 p.m. for a 27-year-old man who was riding with a male partner on a train entering the hub at 34th Street and Pennsylvania Station in Uptown. He was arrested on Tuesday in connection with the attack. the police said.
Police said Hamlin yelled abuse at the victim because of her sexuality, then lunged at the victim in the face with a sharp weapon.
“They were acting like any other couple on the train,” Lt. John Russo of the NYPD’s Detective Bureau told reporters at a briefing Tuesday. “They were just together, and Milton Hamlin took exception to that for some reason.”
Russo said the victim raised his hand to protect himself and was cut between his thumb and index finger.
The victim’s cut required four stitches, Russo said.
The injured man declined an interview with the Post on Wednesday, saying he “needs time to myself.”
Hamlin, who was tracked using facial recognition technology, was charged with assault and menacing as a hate crime, authorities said. His arraignment was pending Wednesday.
Hamlin was added to the sex offender registry in 2011 after being convicted in Brooklyn of attempting to commit a crime by luring a 16-year-old boy he knew into a car or building, records show.
He served about a year and a half in state prison before being released in July 2013, according to state correctional records.
Hamlin was also convicted of second-degree assault and served more than a year in prison from April 2007 to September 2008.
Russo said he has previous arrests for grand larceny, grand larceny of a motor vehicle, burglary and possession of stolen property.
In another recent attack on a gay couple, two 36-year-old men were walking together on Broadway near 33rd Street in Astoria around 7:30 p.m. on February 28 when a young Four visible bullies shouted anti-gay slurs and then beat up the couple. Authorities said it contained an unspecified “hard object.”
Members of the violent group then punched one of the victims in the face, causing swelling and bruising, police said.
No arrests have been made in this incident.
Meanwhile, subway crime has jumped nearly 20% compared to the same time last year, according to NYPD data.
On Wednesday, an MTA conductor was randomly hit in the head with a glass bottle by an unknown man in the Bronx. That was an hour after Gov. Kathy Hochul announced that the National Guard would flood the metro to stem a spike in crime.
And on Tuesday, police said a straphanger was hit in the back of the head with a metal object in Queens and another rider was hit with an umbrella on the Upper East Side.
