WELL, AT LEAST HE CLEANS UP NICE!
Proud Boy brawler’s extremist makeover
One of the Proud Boy goons busted last week over a brawl with antifa protesters outside a Republican club on the Upper East Side underwent a total makeover for his court appearance Thursday.
John Kinsman, 39, shaved his long, scruffy beard, chopped off his scraggly hair and ditched his Carhartt overalls for a gray suit and tie.
The World Trade Center steel inspector was in Manhattan Criminal Court to learn whether he had been indicted for the Oct. 12 melee outside the Metropolitan Republican Club. He hadn’t been, yet.
He was nearly unrecognizable in a short, gelled-back hairdo and stylish, black-rimmed glasses.
His suit jacket covered the prominent “PROUD BOY” tattoo on his right arm.
Members of the radical-right organization got into a fracas with the far-left protesters after founder Gavin McInnes delivered a speech at the usually staid club on East 83rd Street near Lexington Avenue.
The fight erupted after six suspected antifa members shouted at a group of about 10 people, in- cluding Proud Boy members, who had just left the venue, according to Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass.
The shouts prompted two Proud Boy members to charge the protesters, and an antifa member then chucked a bottle at them, sparking the free-for-all, court papers claim.
Kinsman, one of five Proud Boys arrested in the brawl, was previously described by Steinglass as the “single most vicious of all the attackers” that night.
According to prosecutors, Kinsman body-slammed, repeatedly punched and stomped on an antifa member, then kicked another protester all while a cigarette dangled from his mouth.
The father of two faces charges of assault, attempted gang assault and riot.
Attorney Ronald Hart said last week in court that “the Proud Boys did not instigate this fight,” and that Kinsman had been overcharged because of the surrounding publicity.
Geoffrey Young, 38, also surrendered last Friday on assault and rioting charges. He was allegedly caught on surveillance video punching a protester in the face, putting him in a headlock and kicking a second protester in the stomach, according to a criminal complaint.
Young’s lawyer, John Iannuzzi, said last week at Young’s arraignment that his client had the right to defend himself against “some sanctimonious louts with a warped view of the Constitution.”
Irvin Antillon, 41, Douglas Lennan, 40, and Maxwell Hare, 26, have also been charged in connection with the beatdown. Kinsman is due back in court Dec. 6.
A sixth Proud Boy, David Kuriakose, 35, was nabbed late Thursday and charged with rioting, the NYPD said.