WWW- Tired from a long day at work, Star Muhammad fell asleep while riding the subway to night school – and woke up to find a disturbed man molesting her leg.
“Here was this thing, laying stretched out on the floor, with my leg wrapped around his arm, kissing my boot,” she told the Daily News yesterday.
Muhammad, 40, said when she realized what was happening, she could barely believe her eyes or her ears.
As she shook off the assailant – accused foot-fetish freak Joseph Weir, who has confessed to attacking 70 women – he spouted a line from the movie “Wayne’s World.”
“I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!” he pleaded.
She headed for the exit, dragging the predator along the floor, but he didn’t loosen his grip until the E train pulled into the World Trade Center stop.
“When the doors finally opened, he stood there with his arms open – like he wanted to give me a hug,” she marveled about her April 10 encounter.
For Muhammad, who works for a midtown publishing firm and takes business-management classes downtown, the bizarre episode was a harmless only-in-New-York moment.
Until two weeks later, that is, when she dozed off on the E train again and opened her eyes to see a creepily familiar face.
“Who comes through the car? The nut case!” she said.
He sat across from Muhammad, but it was another woman sitting in a corner seat who caught his attention.
“Sure enough, he got up and started bowing down to her and grabbed her ankle,” Muhammad said. “She started screaming, ‘Get off me! Get off me!'”
The victim wanted so badly to get away she slipped out of her shoe and walked off, half barefoot.
“He was holding her shoe and he put his face in her shoe and he didn’t let it go until we came to Chambers and then he got off,” Muhammad recalled.
This time, Muhammad went straight to police, gave them her story and a phone number she’d gotten for the other woman.
Over the next few days, she looked through hundreds of mug shots and even staked out the subway with a detective, hoping to spot Weir again.
The 23-year-old unemployed Brooklyn man was finally nabbed Thursday after he allegedly went after yet another woman on an uptown E train in lower Manhattan.
After his arrest, Weir admitted kissing and licking the feet and legs of about 70 female straphangers, law enforcement sources said. Eight women have picked him out of lineups. Weir was ordered held in lieu of $10,000 bail, pending a hearing Wednesday.
Muhammad was one of those who identified him, but she’s not sure what kind of punishment would fit the crime.
“I think he has mental problems,” she said. “I don’t think he was out to hurt anyone.”