A Queens ex-con freed last month in his most recent punch-then-purse-snatch case after two women couldn’t ID him at trial has been busted again for a very similar crime — and the latest victim is near death, authorities said yesterday.
Brian Rodriguez, 35, was seen on two surveillance videos approaching Hai Yan Yang from behind on a Flushing street early Saturday, and then punching “her on the side of the head,” a criminal complaint said.
After Yang, 37, crumpled to the ground, Rodriguez picked up her pocketbook and fled, the complaint said.
Yang was taken to Flushing Hospital, and then to North Shore Manhasset Hospital’s neurological ICU unit, where she has “an unrecoverable brain injury . . . and is anticipated to be pronounced brain dead” as early as today, the complaint said.
Rodriguez was arrested Sunday in Queens, cops said.
He was held without bail on charges of first- and second-degree assault after arraignment in Queens court.
Rodriguez — who has been convicted of four robberies since 1995 — was arrested in 2011 after allegedly punching two women and stealing their purses in separate Queens attacks.
But he was freed in those cases on Sept. 27 this year after both women were unable to identify him as their assailant on the first day of trial in those cases.