A man with a lengthy rap sheet has been cuffed again in Miami Beach—mere weeks after trying to rob an elderly woman—this time he's accused of physically assaulting another female passerby, authorities said. Perry Smith, 53, a registered sexual offender, was hit with battery and disorderly conduct charges after the alleged Monday attack, where he purportedly bumped into a woman, sending her tumbling to the ground near 41st Street and Pine Tree Drive, said a report from NBC Miami.
According to the arrest report, once the woman got up Smith barraged her with profanities and then made another aggressive move toward her before she managed to escape, but not before sustaining bruises and scratches, this chaotic string of events follows Smith's recent release on bond relating to a previous battery charge from a March incident—also involving a confrontation with an elderly victim, the woman suffered bruising on her face and scratches on her wrists added the report.
The earlier victim, 83-year-old Jo Manning, recounted to NBC6 how Smith had previously gotten in her face, threatening her unless she handed over her cash, "I just looked at him and I thought 'no, I work too hard for my money, you’re not gonna get it. And you’re not gonna hurt me either," Manning told NBC6. She expressed her dismay upon hearing that Smith was accused yet again of assaulting another woman.
Smith, who has a history of arrests going back to 1990 and is currently registered as a sex offender due to a conviction from a 1999 case involving a child, was listed as homeless in the police report and is being held at a Miami-Dade jail as of Wednesday; legal representation for Smith had not been publicized at the time of the report his arrest record includes charges of a sexual nature as well as violent offenses, according to records from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement described in detail by a piece from rachristianhs.info.
