NY- A subway flasher caught in the act on a cell phone camera may have been arrested in 1994 for exposing himself at one of the same subway platforms he hit recently, sources told the Daily News.
Six victims in addition to the cell phone user have told police they were flashed by the man whose photo appeared on the front page of Saturday’s Daily News.
And a dozen tipsters said they believe the suspect is Dan Hoyt, co-owner of raw-food restaurants called Quintessence.
Hoyt, 43, was arrested in 1994 and charged with public lewdness after he unzipped and flashed a victim at what was then the N platform at Manhattan’s Eighth St. subway station, sources said.
He eventually pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and was sentenced to two days of community service.
Hoyt reneged yesterday on a promise to come in and talk to cops, so police were on the hunt for the wayward restaurateur.
Hoyt’s alleged victims were shocked to hear he had been targeting the same subway station for more than a decade. Four of the seven women who told The News they were flashed said it happened at the Eighth St. station.
“I felt violated, and I kept walking because I just wanted not to be underground with him,” said a 29-year-old restaurant owner who said both she and her younger sister were targeted at the Eighth St. station in the past six months.
A sandy-haired man had followed her, asked for directions to Brooklyn and then started masturbating, she said.
A law student working in the city this summer said she suffered the same indignity when a man approached her in the Eighth St. station. As he fumbled with a map, he started masturbating.
“I recognized him instantly. No doubt. His image is burned in my memory forever,” the law student said when she saw the photo in the Daily News.
All of the alleged victims credited Thao Nguyen, who was quick-thinking enough to snap a picture with her cell phone when the man flashed her on the uptown R train Aug. 19.
“I’m so glad that woman took the picture,” the law student said. “I wouldn’t even have thought of it.”