The Truth Show BLOG

He’s not apologizing for anything. The ex-con accused of savagely beating a helpless stranger in a Queens subway station remained unrepentant about the beatdown, blaming his victim for the unprovoked attack in an exclusive Rikers Island interview with the Daily News.

“I wasn’t trying to kill her,” said the oft-arrested Waheed Foster during a rambling hour-long sitdown. “I was just trying to give a real good a– whooping … If I stomped her in the face, she’d be dead.”

Foster, 41, convicted of murdering his grandmother at the age of 14, flatly admitted the beating of victim Elizabeth Gomes, a 33-year-old mother of two now at risk of losing an eye in the Sept. 20 attack caught on security video inside the Howard Beach-JFK Airport station.

“That’s from my fist,” said the homeless Foster, who made intense eye contact during the interview. “I don’t give a f—k. So what?”

Foster’s long history of violence and mental illness dates to the brutal 1995 killing of his grandmother inside her Brooklyn apartment, followed by a 2001 arrest for stabbing his sister in hand with a screwdriver.

In 2010, he attacked three female workers in a Queens halfway house with a knife, stabbing one woman repeatedly in the chest and face — with an attorney for the victims recently describing him as “a diagnosed schizophrenic” with “a disturbing pattern of attacking women.” Foster, charged with attempted murder, assault, and criminal possession of a weapon in the subway beating, offered an animated account of the shocking attack on an innocent victim heading to work.

He laid the blame for the vicious attack on the woman, insisting they were chatting on the train prior to the 5 a.m. incident — though the victim said she ignored Foster.

“She did something, I can’t say what,” he told The News. “I’m not a good guy. I never will be.”

Foster, in the interview, callously mimicked Gomes’ desperate calls for help as she was lying on the ground, bleeding and weeping. And he expressed no regrets for the assault, “not if it teaches a lesson for someone not to come at me,” said Foster before adding a single caveat: “I do regret that I might do time.”

He currently has four open cases in Manhattan and Queens on a variety of charges, officials said.

“It’s just a source of frustration,” said ex-Manhattan prosecutor Joan Illizi-Orbon about cases like this one. “Unfortunately, we’re not doing enough to fix things. It’s not just one issue. There’s bail, parole, and a failed jail system. They’re left to fend for themselves.”

Gomes said she ignored Foster’s attempts to chat her up on the train, and he then followed her when she exited as she headed to her job as a JFK Airport security guard. The video shows Foster smashing her with a bottle, slamming her against the wall, and then raining punches on Gomes before stomping on her head.

The victim is left on the floor in a pool of blood as Foster is seen walking away.

Foster’s rap sheet indicates his arrest last month was his eighth in the last 21 years despite his lengthy amount of time behind bars. He was released from the Elmira Correctional Facility on April 1, 2021 after serving most of a 12-year sentence in the triple stabbing.

Foster, whose psychiatric woes and jail time eventually left him without a place to live, told The News he has spent more than 4,000 days behind bars. He also said he stopped taking his psychiatric medications about two months ago, prior to the subway station attack.

His next court appearance in the beating case was set for Oct. 18, according to the Queens District Attorney’s office. At his Sept. 21 arraignment in Queens, a psychiatric exam was ordered for the troubled defendant.

Once on Rikers Island that same day, Foster tried to assault a Corrections Department staffer and was taken to the jail’s West Facility for violent inmates, a source told The News.

Foster, who wore a beige hoodie, beige sweatpants and black sneakers during the interview, nonchalantly mentioned killing his grandmother before quickly changing the subject. He also predicted an acquittal if the current case ever gets to trial, although he appeared unfazed by the possibility of a conviction.

“If they find me guilty, I’ma go upstate. I’m a chill,” he said.