[NYPOST] If you’re wondering why not a week now goes by without news of another perv groping, grinding, exposing or even attacking innocents on the subway, well: Blame the state Assembly.The NYPD puts a high priority on nabbing these sickos. But while it can arrest them and provide evidence that leads to a conviction, it can’t keep them off the trains or out of the stations because state law has no provision for an outright ban of even the worst serial offenders.
Men like chronic offender Jermaine Hampton, 35, busted in May for rubbing his groin against a 21-year-old woman standing on a northbound 4 train. He was repeating the very same crime for which he was on a 10-year probation, police say. The registered Level 1 sex offender has been charged five times for transit sex crimes since 2016, in multiple boroughs.
Or like Giovanni Verdelli, 67, but with more than 70 arrests ‐ caught again last week after sexually assaulting an off-duty traffic cop on the L train. A homeless man who goes by the name Gian, he also faces charges for an incident where he slipped his hand up the skirt of a 37-year-old mom, then groped her. His "excuse": The train was crowded.
"If this case doesn’t point to why we should continue to push for a ban on the subways, I don’t know what does," said Commissioner James O’Neill. "This is what’s the definition of crazy, right? Keep doing the same thing and expecting different results ‐ so that’s why we’re pushing to get the law changed."
Even the heavily Democratic state Senate sees the sense in barring proven predators from public transit. It passed Sen. Diane Savino’ s "Subway Grinder Bill" unanimously this year, but the Assembly refused to even take it up ‐ for the sixth year in a row.
The lower chamber is dominated by "politicians" who find some reason to reject every "get tough" measure that comes their way, whether it involves violent crime, dangerous driving, frightening mental illness or a host of other public menaces.
"These are not your run-of-the-mill perverts," Savino said after The Post reported that Rajesh Gami was released from jail with no bail after an arrest for stalking and groping a 16-year-old girl on the subway five times in less than two months.