Man charged in Phila. subway assault

Philadelphia police last night charged a 39-year-old man with the knifepoint sexual assault - on a Market-Frankford Line train - of a 22-year-old woman with a child in her arms.

David A. Kaplan of Northeast Philadelphia was charged with aggravated indecent assault and related offenses in an attack that occurred late Thursday morning during a 20-minute train ride from the Frankford Transportation Center to Center City, according to police spokesman Lt. Frank Vanore.

Kaplan was picked up about 11:45 a.m. yesterday after Second District officers, responding to a report of a person with a knife in the 6900 block of Rising Sun Avenue, spotted him and noted his resemblance to a composite sketch of the attacker, Vanore said.

The officers took Kaplan to the Special Victims Unit for questioning, and he was later charged.

Vanore did not disclose what evidence police had linking Kaplan to the crime.

Police said the woman was assaulted not long after she got onto an inbound train at the Frankford Transportation Center about 11 a.m. Thursday.

Police said the woman took a seat and placed the baby on her lap. At that point, the assailant, who also boarded the train at that station, sat next to her and placed the knife at her side. He then groped her, and continued to do so until the train arrived at Eighth Street and he got out and fled.

"At the time that this happened, there was roughly a handful of people on the specific train car where this happened," said SEPTA spokesman Andrew Busch. "That would be about normal . . . for this off-peak period. Nobody on the car was in the immediate vicinity of the victim."

Kaplan has four pending bench warrants for failing to appear in court for cases involving nuisance crimes such as disorderly conduct and public urination, court records show.

Last week, Municipal Court Judge Georganne V. Daher issued a bench warrant for Kaplan resulting from a July 11 disorderly conduct arrest.

Last year, Kaplan was found guilty of three counts of theft and sentenced to a maximum 12 months of probation.