Charges dropped in alleged subway groping

Police Wednesday dropped charges of sexual abuse and forcible touching against a Queens man after a woman who was allegedly groped in a May 7 incident in Brooklyn declined to sign a criminal complaint, law enforcement officials said.

A police official, who asked not to be identified, said after the woman had picked out Joshua Flecha, 32, in a lineup Tuesday as the man who groped her in the subway, she declined to cooperate further. The official said the woman indicated she didn't want to sign the complaint because she wasn't sure of his identity.

Police said in a statement Tuesday the woman had identified Flecha in a lineup and he was being subjected to other lineups in connection with a pattern of recent sex crimes in Brooklyn. The results of those lineups weren't known late Wednesday.

Flecha was originally arrested Tuesday on marijuana possession charges after police spotted him walking slowly on 17th Street by some parked cars between 10th and 11th avenues. The marijuana was uncovered during a search, police said. Flecha had a cellphone in his hand playing a pornographic video and his pants unzipped, a police spokesman said.

A spokeswoman for the Brooklyn district attorney's office said Flecha was expected to be arraigned on the marijuana charge Wednesday. The spokeswoman had no information on Flecha's representation.

Police have been under community pressure for several weeks to find suspects in high-profile sex-assault patterns in Brooklyn and Queens. Officials said a 26-year-old man was arrested Oct. 11 and charged with forcible touching and third-degree sexual abuse stemming from an incident Oct. 10 on 39th Street between Fourth and Fifth avenues in Brooklyn.

It was there the suspect, identified by police as Adolfo Martinez, approached an 18-year-old woman, grabbed her buttocks from behind and then fled. Martinez admitted to similar acts but claimed he could not recall where they had occurred, police said in a statement.