Ex-con allegedly pummeled woman in NYC subway after being freed on parole violation
A ex-con vagrant accused of beating a woman in a Queens subway station had been arrested for violating his parole weeks before the caught-on-video attack — only to be cut loose thanks to a state “reform’’ backed by Gov. Hochul, critics charge.
Waheed Foster, 41, was still on parole for an assault rap when he was arrested twice for misdemeanors in August, records show.
But instead of being held on the parole violation — as his parole officer wanted — a judge freed the career criminal, who also killed his grandma when he was 14.
New York state’s new “Less is More” act — signed into law by Hochul in 2021 — allowed the move by taking away the discretion of parole officers to be able to put dangerous criminals back behind bars themselves.
The law essentially allows accused parole violators new levels of due process, with the goal of keeping people with low-level technical violations out of jail. But critics say it is also resulting in alleged dangerous people walking free when they would have previously been locked up.
Foster was sprung on the parole violation Sept. 9 — and allegedly randomly attacked the woman in the subway a little over two weeks later.
If Foster hadn’t been freed, then the victim in the attack wouldn’t be worried about losing vision in her right eye as a result of her injuries, a Manhattan cop told The Post.
“The governor has to rethink her orders on freeing parolees to walk the streets freely to pummel the helpless,’’ the cop said. “This is as bad as the bail reform laws.’’
Foster had a lengthy rap sheet including convictions for assaulting a woman with a screwdriver and for the 1995 beating death of his grandmother when he was a young teen, The Post previously reported.
He had been released from prison last year after a 12-year sentence on the assault charge in Queens and was on parole through Nov. 1, 2024.
While under post-release supervision, he was arrested Aug. 21 on misdemeanor charges of criminal possession of stolen property and petit larceny.
Foster was arraigned and released but arrested the same day for criminal mischief, though charges weren’t filed in that case, sources said.
Even though both arrests were potential parole violations, he walked, pending a hearing process as outlined in the law.
He then failed to report to his parole officer Aug. 23, and an absconder warrant was issued Sept. 6 on behalf of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision for his arrest when subsequent attempts to locate or contact him weren’t successful.
Foster was arrested on the absconder warrant Sept. 8 but released on his own recognizance the next day by Judge David Lewis.
The suspect was freed despite arguments from the DCCS that he shouldn’t be released during the parole revocation process, a rep for the department told The Post.
Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for New York state courts, said in an e-mail, “Under Less is More, a recognizance-hearing court may order a Releasee be detained pending a revocation hearing only if the Releasee currently presents a substantial risk of willfully failing to appear at the-preliminary or final revocation hearings and that non-monetary conditions will not reasonably assure the Releasee’s appearance at the preliminary or final revocation hearing.
“So the Judge must release the Releasee on the least restrictive non-monetary conditions that will reasonably assure the releasee’s appearance at subsequent preliminary or revocation hearings and there is no provision for bail to be imposed.”
On the loose again after his hearing, Foster also ditched his preliminary parole revocation hearing scheduled for Sept. 16, according to the DOCCS rep.
No new date had been set for Foster’s hearing by the morning of Sept. 20, when he allegedly flew into a rage after straphanger Elizabeth Gomes ignored him as she got off the A-train at the Howard Beach-JFK Airport stop.
Foster tossed Gomes, 33, into a wall, then unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks, chasing off a good Samaritan who tried to intervene, according to police and video of the incident.
Gomes, who was on the way to work at JFK, previously told The Post she heard Foster ranting about the devil and “a whole a bunch of stuff you don’t want to hear at five o’clock in the morning” before he allegedly unloaded on her and badly bashed her right eye.
Foster is now being held at Rikers Island while awaiting his recognizance hearing, which was adjourned at the request of his lawyer, a DOCCS rep said.
