NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) -- A Queens man has been banned from both the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North for three years after he waved a knife at transit workers, cutting two of them, officials said Thursday.
Taijuan Corse, 32, of Jamaica, pleaded guilty to attempted assault following an altercation last summer on an LIRR train at Atlantic Terminal in Brooklyn, according to the Queens D.A.'s Office.
As a condition of his plea, a judge ordered him to say off MTA's LIRR and Metro-North commuter systems for three years.
He's also been ordered to take part in a one-year substance abuse and mental health outpatient program.
If he fails to meet the terms of the plea agreement, he faces one to three years behind bars, prosecutors said.
The plea stems from an altercation on Aug. 22, 2022, when Corse boarded the train at Atlantic Terminal and threatened a conductor who asked him for a train ticket.
When three more transit workers arrived to help their colleague, Corse took a knife from his backpack and waved it at them.
He repeatedly lunged at one of them and swung the knife at another, cutting the worker's arm, prosecutors said.
He also threatened to kill the workers and cut another one of them as the train approached the LIRR station in Jamaica, according to the D.A.'s office.
"This defendant has forfeited the privilege of using our commuter trains for the foreseeable future, making it clear that incidents like this one will be taken very seriously," Queens D.A. Melinda Katz said in a statement.
In a statement, LIRR Interim President and Metro-North Railroad President Catherine Rinaldi said, "Nobody on a train should be threatened or assaulted, especially front-line workers just trying to get riders where they need to go."
"We are grateful to the Queens D.A. for imposing a ban on taking both the Long Island Rail Road and Metro-North Railroad as part of a sentencing deal, as the Legislature had intended in giving prosecutors the ability to stop criminals from abusing the privilege of riding public transportation," Rinaldi said.
Late last year, another man was banned from the LIRR for two years after he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing a conductor.
The bans were made possible through a recently passed New York state law that allows people who’ve committed crimes against transit workers or sex offenses on public transportation to be banned for up to three years.
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