Accused Subway Stabber Indicted On Attempted Murder Charges
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A Boston man has been indicted on charges that he stabbed four people last week – three of them tourists – during a 13-hour rampage through Manhattan, prosecutors said yesterday.
An assistant district attorney, Christopher Ryan, said the indictment, filed yesterday, charges Kenny Alexis, 20, with four counts of second-degree attempted murder, two counts of first-degree assault, attempted assault, and attempted robbery.
Mr. Alexis is accused of stabbing a Texas man on a subway train, a Mexican resident of Brooklyn on a subway platform, and two Canadian women on a street in the theater district. The two men remain hospitalized while the two women have been released.
Mr. Alexis faces up to 25 years in prison if convicted of attempted murder or first-degree assault, the most serious charges. He is being held without bail at Bellevue Hospital Center for psychiatric tests to determine whether he is fit to stand trial.
Mr. Alexis’s Legal Aid Society lawyer, Candace Kurtz, said she was unaware her client had been indicted. She said she asked for a mental exam because “my first impression of him, and I only spent about an hour with him, was that he seemed mentally ill.”
The results of the tests will be filed in court on July 13, Mr. Ryan said. If he is found fit for trial, Mr. Alexis will be arraigned on the attempted murder indictment in Manhattan’s state Supreme Court and he will enter his first plea to the charges.
Mr. Ryan said Mr. Alexis underwent a trial fitness exam in Boston after an arrest there and was found competent to stand trial. He also said last week that the defendant’s family members said they were unaware that Mr. Alexis had any mental health issues.
In interviews from Bellevue, Mr. Alexis has told news organizations he felt that people were watching him. “People be watching me,” he told reporters. “But even before I came here, growing up, people was always watching me.”
Mr. Ryan said Mr. Alexis is a Haitian who entered this country legally 3 1/2 years ago on an education visa. He said the defendant had taken high school level classes in Boston.
