Lawyer points to a ‘fight club’ atmosphere in shelter assault
A lawyer for one of five migrants charged with assaulting a fellow Randalls Island shelter resident said a “fight club” atmosphere encouraged by security staff was to blame — and that it specifically targeted trans migrants.
“The security was egging the fight on like a fight club setting,” Anabel Olivero’s defense attorney Gurmeet Singh said at Olivero’s arraignment Tuesday.
“Apparently, the security in the tent has been making people fight, especially trans people,” Singh added.
The victim and the alleged attackers all lived in the same massive tent at the shelter. Five residents are accused of surrounding the victim, pulling her hair, hitting her head and body and scratching her early Monday, according to prosecutors.
Jose Manuel Maza, 29, and Jose Sequera, 20, were also arraigned Tuesday on charges of misdemeanor assault and harassment. Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Valentina Morales released Olivero, Maza and Sequera and ordered them to stay away from the victim.
Singh said that he’d be looking for security and phone footage from the incident to show that Olivero, 27, a trans woman, wasn’t attacking, but was actively trying to break up the fight.
“My client knows … the complainant, and the defendant has a friendly relationship with this individual,” the attorney said.
An assistant district attorney countered that, saying that when apprehended at the local precinct, Olivero told an officer that the complainant “is a thief and is out to cause problems.”
The 24-year-old victim was snacking in bed when and was repeatedly punched by the five suspects about 1:45 a.m., according to police.
Two people were taken to Metropolitan Hospital, according to the FDNY.
Xavier Pacheco, 32, was arraigned in the early Monday morning. He pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to be back in court May 30.
A fifth suspect, Carlos Maiz Betancourt, 23, was arrested on the same charges.
The incident is not the first time violence has broken out at the massive tent shelter, which can house 2,000 single adults.
In February, video showed a rowdy group of migrants yelling and throwing objects, including a backpack, at NYPD officers as they made an arrest at the shelter.
In January, a melee outside the shelter escalated to the point where a 24-year-old man was stabbed in the neck.
Two weeks before that, a migrant dad living at the shelter was murdered by another resident in a dispute over a woman, according to police.
In the wake of the attacks, Mayor Adams announced he planned to install metal detectors at the site.
A curfew restricting access to the site from 11 p.m. to 6 a.m. began last month.