Cops have nabbed a suspect wanted for terrorizing a transgender person on a subway in Manhattan, the NYPD tweeted Monday morning.
“Great job by Manhattan Warrants apprehending this suspect in NJ,” the tweet posted to the account of Chief of Detectives Rodney Harrison said. “Thank you to everyone who called in with information. As I’ve said before, if you choose to commit a crime that is motivated by prejudice, you will be held accountable and brought to justice.”
Police sources identified the suspect as Pablo Valle, 26.
“He also goes by the name Pablo Escobar,” one police source said.
Valle has 27 prior arrests, including busts for drugs, assault, grand larceny and robbery, the source said.
The disturbing incident occurred around 8 p.m. Friday while the 26-year-old woman, Serena Daniari, was waiting for a southbound C train at West 155th Street when a couple approached her, cops said.
She told The Post on Sunday that she was wearing headphones and reading a book when Valle asked her a series of questions that she didn’t understand.
“I took my headphones out, I asked him to repeat himself … and upon hearing my voice, he realized I was transgender,” she said.
“He started saying, ‘Oh, you’re a guy. You’re a guy. You’re a tranny,’” Daniari recalled.
The man then spat on her and slapped her in the face, cops said.
The incident continued when a woman believed to be in her 20s slapped Daniari’s iPhone out of her hand while she tried to take a photo.
“She was saying, ‘She definitely has a d–k, she definitely has a d–k,’” Daniari told The Post.
The couple ran out of the station, but cops obtained a photo of them and released it to the public.
“I swear, I just wish people would leave me alone … I don’t do anything,” Daniari said in a video on Twitter about two hours after the attack. “I just want to be left alone.”
