Former MTA subway conductor Lynette Pierce walked out of Bronx Criminal Court saying she was still processing the fact her attacker did not receive the maximum sentence for slashing her on the job last June.

“What I had to deal with the past year and a half has been traumatic,” said Pierce.

Pierce wiped away tears in court as a judge sentenced Isaiah Thompson to six years in prison for slashing her across the face in the conductor’s cab at the Whitlock Avenue Station on June 10, 2025.

“She saw Thompson running up the stairs as the subway doors were closing; she reopened the door and allowed him to board,” said Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark. “She could never have imagined that the simple act of kindness would change her life.”

Prosecutors said Thompson had at least 15 prior arrests, including another subway assault conviction. They asked for a maximum of seven years.

Pierce said she would never be the same. 

“The scar on my face it still bothers me. The scar that’s inside of me is going to bother me for a lifetime,” she said.

The MTA has been working with district attorneys to secure convictions and maximum sentences —even hiring a criminal justice advocate who was there for the trial and sentencing. Now, the president of the Transport Workers Union, which represents transit employees, is calling out judges who he said aren’t hard enough on these criminals. 

Union members were even holding signs with those judges’ photos at a press conference following the sentencing.

“I have judges that are a hit list as far as — and when I say hit list, we don’t want them to be judges anymore,” said John Chiarello, president of TWU Local 100. “They should turn in their robes if they want to bring people out who smash people’s heads on the ground, who don’t impose sentences that live up to the crimes.”

Pierce, who comes from a family of transit workers, said she can’t even ride the subway anymore, let alone go back to her old job.

“Because the reality is, every moment that I step inside of that conductor cab, that is the first thing I’m going to remember,” she said.

Pierce hopes to return to New York City Transit but in a different job.