A creep spotted in a “Lilo & Stitch” sweatshirt is wanted for randomly punching a stranger in the face near Union Square — part of a wave of unprovoked attacks on women, mostly in Lower Manhattan.
The 33-year-old victim was walking on Union Square East near East 16th Street around 4:30 p.m. March 20 when the menace approached her from behind and socked her in the face, police said.
He then took off, heading north on Park Avenue, cops said.
The woman refused medical attention at the scene for minor injuries.
A surveillance photo released by the NYPD Friday shows the suspected assailant wearing a blue hoodie depicting the character Stitch from the Disney movie “Lilo & Stitch.”
The NYPD said that the senseless crime did not appear to be part of a pattern – but it came as a surge of women have reported being randomly punched in the Big Apple.
Just hours earlier, a brute punched a woman in the face after he stumbled out of a Union Square McDonald’s, cops said this week.
In that incident, Ashley Cruz, 23, was walking on Sixth Avenue near West 14th Street around 10 a.m. March 20 when the attacker stepped out of the fast-food eatery and slugged her without warning, cops said.
“Nothing was said” before the man socked her in the face with an open fist, Cruz told The Post Wednesday night at her Bushwick, Brooklyn, home.
“It all happened so fast and I was in shock,” she said of the attack that has forced her to relearn how to feel safe in the only place she’s called home.
Other recent victims included Halley Kate, an influencer with 1.1 million followers on TikTok, who posted a video last week saying she was assaulted so viciously that she blacked out.
Skiboky Stora, 40, a criminal recidivist with an extensive criminal record, was busted in connection with the sucker-punch, authorities said.
In another random assault last week, 57-year-old Brooklyn school bus aide Dulche Pichardo was slugged by an unhinged man — breaking her jaw and knocking out several of her teeth — as she walked home from work in Crown Heights, cops said.
Franz Jeudy, 33 — who has a rap sheet of similar sucker-punch attacks and a long history of mental illness — was slapped with misdemeanor charges of third-degree assault, attempted assault and harassment in connection to the attack, according to a criminal complaint.
Despite the victim’s severe injuries, Jeudy was set free by a Brooklyn judge on supervised release because the offenses are not bail-eligible.
“I don’t feel it’s any kind of social media TikTok thing,” NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny has said about the recent spate of attacks.
“You know, these incidents happen. Assaults three happen all the time. We look into each one of them. The majority of them have been occurring in Manhattan South. We are not seeing it anywhere else,” he added.
“The only thing I can think of is more people are reporting them and I encourage that.”
