Accused Grand Central stabber slashed fellow inmate with ceramic blade in unprovoked attack: police sources

The unhinged man accused of stabbing two teen tourists at Grand Central Terminal allegedly slashed a fellow inmate in an unprovoked attack at Rikers Island Thursday, law enforcement sources told The Post.

Steven Hutcherson, 36 — who was being held without bail over the random Christmas Day stabbing — allegedly suddenly got up from his cot in a dorm at the Eric M. Taylor Center and pounced on the 43-year-old man lying just feet away from him at around 8 a.m., the sources said.

He used a 1.5-inch ceramic blade to slash the other inmate, leaving gashes across the left side of his face and head, according to the sources.

A correction officer intervened quickly, pepper-spraying Hutcherson and rushing the victim to the jail infirmary.

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The injured man was later brought to Elmhurst Hospital to be treated for the slash wounds, which sources said were between 1-and-5 inches long.

A city Department of Correction spokesman said Hutcherson, who also uses the name Esteban Esono-Asue, “will be processed for rearrest for this incident.”

The DOC was investigating how he was able to get his hands on the blade.

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Hutcherson was scanned for weapons when he got to Rikers after his Tuesday night arraignment on attempted murder as a hate crime and other charges in the Grand Central stabbing — and none were found at the time, DOC sources said.

Hutcherson — who has a history of mental health issues and at least 17 prior arrests — also underwent a physical and psychological evaluation by city Correctional Health Services, and cleared to be placed with the general population at Rikers, the sources said.

“Sometimes they fool the psychiatrist,” one frustrated DOC source said. “Basically, they are brought in, they talk to a psychiatrist, they ask a number of questions, pretty generic stuff. That’s up to the inmate whether he wants to be honest or not.”

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Still, the source noted that based on the allegations against him, it was shocking Hutcherson hadn’t automatically been sent to a specialized unit for people with mental illness.

“Don’t you think a guy who stabbed two young girls should automatically be in a mental observation unit?” the source asked.

“That’s the problem,” the source added. “He’s going to do it again and eventually he’s going to succeed and kill someone.”

The source added it’s “not uncommon” for weapons to find their way into the jail.

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Hutcherson was transferred to a separate Rikers jail where he will be confined for 14 hours a day and be housed away from other inmates, according to sources.

He was due to appear back in Manhattan court Friday in the attack at a French restaurant inside the Grand Central dining concourse.

“I don’t want to sit with the black people. I want to sit with the crackers,” Hutcherson, who is black, allegedly said inside Tartinery on Monday morning, before pulling a knife and stabbing a 16-year-old girl in the back and her 14-year-old sister in the leg.

The victims, tourists from Paraguay in town with their family, were treated at a local hospital and released.

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Just two weeks earlier, Hutcherson was in front of a Bronx judge, pleading guilty to third-degree assault for threatening to kill a stranger on Nov. 7.

“Why are you working for white people? I’m going to kill this man” he yelled, according to victim Yussif Abdullahi.

Prosecutors asked that he be sentenced to 30 days in jail — which would have kept him behind bars on Christmas Day, according to a transcript of the Dec. 12 hearing.

Judge Matthew Grieco instead sentenced Hutcherson to a conditional discharge — meaning the case would be dropped if he stayed out of trouble for a year — and two psychiatric therapy sessions.

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Grieco also issued an order of protection for the victim — which sent Hutcherson into a fit of giggles.

“I’m laughing because it’s a funny name,” he told the judge.

Hutcherson also bizarrely asked to be identified as “Ms. Hutcherson” during the proceedings, according to the transcript.

An ex-girlfriend, Charisma Knight, has said Hutcherson told her he was schizophrenic and bipolar — but refused to take his prescribed medications during their relationship. 

The Legal Aid Society, which represents Hutchinson, declined to comment Thursday on the alleged Rikers attack.

The inmate he allegedly slashed is a person of color, sources said.

The City Council last week passed a controversial bill banning solitary confinement in Big Apple lockups.

“This is exactly the kind of dangerous, violent person that this new law will embolden at the expense of corrections officers and inmates who will be in grave danger if this legislation goes into practice,” a source said.

The Corrections Officer Benevolent Association, the union that represents the city’s 6,000 DOC employees, has warned that the law — set to take effect next year — would jeopardize the safety of officers and inmates at the jails.

“Today’s heinous attack at EMTC by the same serial stabber, who attacked two innocent teenagers at Grand Central, demonstrates exactly why we need to maintain punitive segregation in our jails,” COBA President Benny Boscio said in a statement Thursday.

Correction officials said this week that more than 2,700 weapons have been confiscated from inmates at city jails since the end of February.

Additional reporting by Kyle Schnitzer