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Responding officers found and arrested Jermaine Oshen Thompson, 37, after he’d fled the West Palisade Avenue restaurant, Deputy Police Chief Gregory Halstead said.
It was the sixth time Thompson had been arrested in the past 11 months.
A judge had freed Thompson in September pending trial after he was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon in a domestic violence incident in Hackensack.
He’d been arrested a month before that and spent a little over three weeks in the Bergen County jail for harassment and violating a restraining order, records show.
Thompson entered the Englewood restaurant and ordered a sandwich on Monday, then grabbed the worker’s buttocks when she turned to prepare the meal, Halstead said.
He left when another worker emerged from the kitchen area to help her, then returned and tried grabbing her again, the deputy chief said.
The woman threw Thompson out after a brief argument, after which he returned with the box cutter and “menacingly approached the victim with the weapon before abruptly leaving again,” he said.
Thompson’s criminal history in Bergen County stretches back to 2005, when he was charged with resisting arrest and aggravated assault on a police officer. A string of offenses since then include aggravated assault, harassment and weapons charges.
The 6-foot, 172-pound Jamaican national remained held Tuesday in the Bergen County Jail pending a first appearance in Central Judicial Processing Court in Hackensack.
He’s charged with criminal sexual contact, simple assault and weapons possession.
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