A seemingly endless rotation between state forensic hospitals and city jails has meant that some mentally ill detainees stay in the system for years without ever standing trial.
A new jury would hear from only one or both of the women whom he was convicted of assaulting, in what analysts say will be a much narrower and weaker case.
A complaint filed by the Legal Aid Society and others accuses the state prison system of holding mentally ill and disabled people in isolation despite a law against the practice.
The authorities were searching for the detainee, a 35-year-old man with a history of mental illness, after he eluded two guards at Bellevue Hospital Center.