Eighteen-year-old José Alfredo Pérez Hernández was taken into custody for allegedly inappropriately grabbing at least 12 women in the Subway system.
Police received a tip from a superintendent at an upper East Side building that Pérez, a coffee shop employee at one of his buildings, was the tiny pervert they were looking for; the super recognized the short groper from a subway surveillance photograph released by police last week after a young woman was sexually assaulted Friday inside Central Park, near 66th St.
Detectives suspected that the groper might work in a kitchen because of the odd hours that the attacks occurred; they picked up Pérez at his home Tuesday morning. He refused to speak with officers, and asked for a lawyer.
The tiny groper has been in the prowl since May, and is reportedly a suspect in at least a dozen other eerily similar attacks, where a man standing less than 5 ft tall approached young women near or inside their homes after following them from the train station, and groped them.
A coworker at Antonucci Café, where Pérez was a dishwasher defends him, and says that at least during the last incident, Pérez had him as an alabi, as they were drinking together at a bar.
The pint-sized groper is still being questioned, and victims are being contacted to identify him in police lineups.
