‘PUSHED ME WITH A BEASTLY FORCE’
Victim relives sicko’s attack on train platform
A Queens woman waiting for a subway train in Manhattan wound up with a fractured neck Monday night after a stranger pounced on top of her, then hurled her straight into a metal column — the latest in an alarming spate of attacks in city subway stations.
Ruth Leon-Villegas was waiting on the F train platform at the W. Fourth St.–Washington Square station in Greenwich Village when Matthew Montanez, 23, of Queens Village, attacked her about 9:30 p.m., police said.
“He pushed me towards the column with a beastly force,” Leon-Villegas, 55, of St. Albans, told the Daily News in Spanish during a call from Bellevue Hospital, where she was in serious but stable condition.
“[He] stayed there, watching me. And I told people, ‘It was him, it was him,’ until they got him,” she said. “But he stayed there with a crazed look on his face, watching me — watching what he had done.”
Montanez was nabbed moments after the unprovoked attack and charged with assault and reckless endangerment, police said.
He was awaiting arraignment Tuesday evening.
Montanez has five prior arrests, including for grand and petty larceny and robbery, police said. He suffers from mental health issues, including hearing voices, and has been known to go off his medications, sources said.
“I have a fractured neck, I have a big wound on my head, I have bruises. ... I’m beat up,” Leon-Villegas said. “I have to thank God that I have a fractured neck and nothing more.”
“I don’t know why [he did it] because I got away from him,” she added. “Maybe in his crazy state he was looking to hurt somebody.”
Leon-Villegas, who moved to New York from Venezuela three years ago, was on her way home from work Monday night when she first noticed Montanez singing loudly on the platform.
“I saw him, I didn’t like the look of him so I moved away. A lot of people also moved away,” she said.
But by the time the train rolled in, Montanez was close enough to spring right on top of her.
“[When] the train came, and when I went to get onto the train, he jumped on top of me and hit me into the metal pole,” Leon-Villegas said.
“I was unconscious for a few seconds. And I was really nervous, because I was like, ‘I can’t stay unconscious, I’m alone, I have to be able to call someone,’ ” she added, her voice rising. “So I came back to [consciousness], and I was able to call my daughter, who was working, to let her know what had happened.”
The harrowing ordeal comes after a string of subway attacks last month.
On Nov. 22, a man shoved a
29-year-old straphanger onto the tracks at the Atlantic Ave.-Barclays Center station in Brooklyn. The victim suffered minor bruising and was able to get himself off the tracks back onto the platform by himself, cops said.
Just three days earlier, on Nov. 19, 24-year-old Aditya Vemulapati violently pushed Liliana Sagbaicela, 40, onto the tracks at the Union Square station the instant before a northboundNo.5trainarrived,cops said. Sagbaicela survived the attack. Vemulapati, who is homeless, was charged with attempted murder.
On Nov. 18, panhandler Justin Pena, 23, who admitted to cops he used the synthetic drug K2 and had “angerissues,”attackeda36-year-old
man who wouldn’t give him a dollar at the 42nd St.-Bryant Park station, cops said.
Pena punched the man several times and shoved him onto the southbound B/D tracks, but the victim was able to climb onto the platformbeforeatrainarrived, police said.
“This [situation] is totally out of control,” Leon-Villegas said of the attacks. “This time of year is the time for families to enjoy, and because of the pandemic and the negative effects we already have, and now this, it’s not easy.”
“We have to not be afraid, and be watchful, and go on, because life is like this — especially here in New York, life doesn’t stop.”