Officials to file complaint over anti-migrant rant

NEW YORK — Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., who was born in the Dominican Republic, said Thursday that he was filing a grievance with the court system against a man, believed to be a lawyer, who spewed a racist rant at Spanishspeaking workers in a Manhattan lunch spot.

The grievance will name the man as Aaron Schlossberg, said Candace Person, a spokeswoman for Espaillat. Person said the name is based on social media and “credible reports.” Schlossberg did not return a phone call left at his office, she said.

Ruben Diaz Jr., the Democratic Bronx Borough president, will join Espaillat’s complaint, officials said.

The court system’s attorney grievance committee investigates complaints to determine what action, if any, should be taken. Possible penalties include sanction and censure, a suspended law license and removal from the state bar, according to a spokesman for the New York State Unified Court System.

On Tuesday, Schlossberg’s verbal assault was captured in a video that was widely shared and condemned on social media. He was angry that staff members preparing food were speaking Spanish to customers, when, he said disdainfully, they “should be speaking English.” He threatened to call the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to deport them.

“It’s America,” he said, scoffing. “I will be following up, and my guess is they’re not documented. So my next call is to ICE to have each one of them kicked out of my country.”

Schlossberg did not return messages from the New York Times on Thursday.

The administrator on the 14th floor of his Madison Avenue office would not comment about the incident Wednesday and asked a reporter to leave because it was private property.