A deranged, woman-hating maniac wanted for more than a half-dozen random attacks on women in the Big Apple is finally in custody, police and sources said Tuesday.
Daquan Armstead, 31, was picked up by cops shortly after midnight and charged with third-degree assault and harassment in eight unprovoked attacks on women this year, the sources said.
That includes an April 17 attack on a 27-year-old administrator at New York University, who was slugged in the face while walking through Washington Square Park around 10:30 a.m., according to police.
The NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force is investigating, although details weren’t released.
Armstead is also being charged in seven other attacks this year.
The violent spree began on Feb. 12, when police said Armstead allegedly walked up to a 30-year-old woman on Elizabeth Street around 11:50 a.m. and punched her without warning, then fled.
On March 24, he allegedly attacked a 30-year-old woman on Delancey Street around 2 a.m., hitting the victim in the back of the head as she turned. He then ran away.
The following day, Armstead is charged with punching a 36-year-old woman in the back as she walked at Chrystie and Rivington streets around 10:15 a.m., police said.
On April 2, he allegedly slugged another woman after he asked the 38-year-old victim for $1 and she replied that she had no cash — so he punched her in the back of the head.
Police said he is also accused of attacking two women in separate incidents on Delancey Street on April 5 — a 25-year-old who was slugged on the right side of her head around 12:25 p.m. and a 44-year-old who was punched in the face just five minutes later, according to cops.
In the last alleged attack before the assault on the NYU administrator, police said Armstead punched a 24-year-old woman on Stanton Street after she also refused when he asked her for $1 shortly before 10 a.m.
Records show his prior busts date to a 2021 misdemeanor assault case.
He is expected to be arraigned on the new charges later Tuesday.
Police have also been investigating a series of other attacks on women that have not been linked to Armstead, including a 23-year-old woman slugged outside a Union Square McDonald’s last month.
Among the other recent victims was 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 with an extensive criminal record, was busted in that case.
In another random attack, a 57-year-old Brooklyn school bus aide was slugged by an unhinged man — a brutal attack that broke her jaw and knocked out several teeth — in Crown Heights, cops said.
Franz Jeudy, 33 — who has a history of sucker-punch attacks and mental illness — was hit with misdemeanor assault charges in that attack, according to a criminal complaint.
