NEW YORK — A 32-year-old man accused of pushing a transgender woman onto New York subway tracks pleaded not guilty Tuesday to attempted murder and attempted assault charges, prosecutors said.
The woman was treated at a local hospital and released after the incident, which police investigated as a hate crime.
Rolan Reid, who was arraigned in state supreme court in Manhattan, is suspected of shoving the 28-year-old victim at a subway stop in the Greenwich Village neighborhood on June 1.
Glenn Hardy, Reid’s attorney, said his client maintains his innocence.
Police at the time said Reid, who was acting erratically, approached the victim and said, “What are you looking at?” before throwing an empty plastic bottle at her and pushing her.
The attack came a month after a New York City woman was jailed for 24 years for fatally pushing a man into the path of an oncoming subway train in 2012 in what officials called an attack motivated by religious hatred.