Set free to rape: Suspect in train station sex assault was freed through NY’s new bail reform laws

A man arrested for trying to rape a woman in a Brooklyn train station earlier this week was in jail for almost a year before the state’s new bail reform laws allowed him to go free and commit more crimes, the Daily News has learned.

Ex-con and repeat offender Arjun Tyler, 20, was arrested late Friday for beating and sexually assaulting a 31-year-old woman at the 95th St. station in Bay Ridge last week, as well as several thefts he allegedly committed in recent days.

Tyler had been sitting in a holding cell on Rikers Island — unable to pay $20,000 bail on a series of crimes he allegedly committed back in 2018 — until Dec. 19. His case was reviewed under the state’s new bail reform laws and he was set free, court documents and sources with knowledge of the case said.

As soon as he stepped out of jail, cops grabbed him in connection with a robbery he allegedly committed in Sunset Park, Brooklyn in 2018, but the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office deferred prosecution as it sought to collect more evidence.

On Monday, Tyler, wearing a ski mask, trailed his latest victim into the bathroom at the 95th St. station around 10:15 a.m.

He repeatedly punched her in the face and tried to pull down her leggings, but her screams for help caught the attention of a homeless man near the token booth.

When the good Samaritan banged on the door, Tyler scrambled out of the bathroom and ran out of the station.

Cops identified the would-be rapist as Tyler through video that caught him after he had taken off the mask.

Tyler had been arrested nearly a dozen times in Brooklyn and Manhattan before his incarceration in 2018, sources said. He was busted for forcible touching that February, they noted.

He remained free until Friday night around 10 p.m., when cops caught him stealing $120 from a laundromat on 14th Ave. near New Utrecht Ave. in Bensonhurst.

Once he was in custody, cops charged him for a litany of crimes: the Bay Ridge sex assault; the 2018 robbery for which he’d never been arrested; and taking $1,100 from a cash register at an 86th St. restaurant and illegally entering an 18th Ave. building, both of which took place on Jan. 13, officials said.

The Brooklyn DA’s office and the Legal Aid Society, which represented Tyler, did not immediately provide comment.

The following video is 2 weeks old but addresses the new bail laws in NY. It lists crimes for which suspects will be released without bail.