Penn Station slashing suspect was free despite eerily similar 2022 attack: records

The homeless madman who allegedly slashed five people with a double-edged knife in Penn Station carried out an eerily similar attack in New Jersey just four years ago, The Post has learned.

But despite the victim being grievously injured in that 2022 Newark stabbing, Hector Deleon, 51, was given just two years of probation as a sentence, court records show.

The victim in that heinous attack, a man who wasn’t publicly identified, landed in the trauma ward, where he received nine stitches to close the knife wound on the left side of his neck, a criminal complaint from February 2022 shows.

Still, Deleon doesn’t appear to have spent any significant time behind bars before Sunday evening — when he allegedly went on a random rampage in the busy Midtown commuter hub, according to law-enforcement sources and witnesses.

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The stabbing spree left five people bloodied, with one seriously injured, FDNY officials said.

Amtrak police nabbed Deleon, who has been hospitalized under heavy sedation, sources said. He had not yet been officially charged by Monday afternoon.

Sources said Deleon used a “boot dagger” — or a double-sided blade about six inches in lenght — during the deranged, drugged-up attack.

Court records and sources show Deleon’s criminal record is streaked with violence, with several arrests for assault — including one just last month, also in New Jersey.

Details about that arrest weren’t immediately available.

The Feb. 8, 2022 knife attack, meanwhile, unfolded along Newark’s Frelinghuysen Avenue, where a man got in an argument with Deleon, the criminal complaint states.

The man told Deleon he was not allowed on the property because he stole things, the papers state.

“The actor (Deleon) then became (enraged) and pulled out a 6 inch knife with a black/gray handle,” the complaint states, “stabbing the victim once on the left side of his neck.”

Newark cops arrested Deleon, leading to charges of aggravated assault, unlawful possession of a weapon and possession of a weapon for an unlawful purpose.

He later pleaded guilty for aggravated assault, for which he received two years of probation with conditions he perform 100 hours of community service and continue mental health treatment.

The knife used in the 2022 attack appears similar to the fixed-blade dagger-type knife with a 4- to 6-inch blade that sources said was recovered from the Penn Station incident.

One victim – Henry Obadiah, 60 – said the disheveled Deleon had “rage in his eyes” as he clocked him in the face.

“I didn’t realize I had just been slashed in the face,” he recalled.