Vid shows Al’s kid cussed, tussled with hack
THE REV. AL Sharpton’s daughter Ashley stiff-armed and smacked at a frantic cabbie — whom she can be heard calling a “b---h” — after she grabbed his keys over a beef in the taxi, according to cell phone video obtained Sunday by the Daily News.
The tussle went down about 1 a.m. Saturday near the intersection of W. 48th St. and Ninth Ave., when the driver of the yellow cab pulled over after getting frustrated that Ashley Sharpton and her three friends — who had been celebrating her 30th birthday — kept giving him different destinations.
Georges Coly, 44, stopped the cab, and Sharpton apparently snatched his keys.
“Give me my key, you have my key,” Coly pleaded with her, according to the video.
He got on his phone and said he was calling the cops.
“This lady took my key,” he told the person on the other end. “I don’t want (a) problem.”
The arguing and bickering went on, and when Coly reached out at Sharpton, she told him, “You put your hands on me? If you put your hands on me, there’s going to really be a problem.”
A man in a plaid shirt and fedora, who was with Sharpton, tried to cool down the squabbling between the activist’s daughter and the cabbie.
“Relax, relax,” he repeatedly told the driver, who kept insisting Sharpton had the car keys.
At one point, Sharpton, believing the cabbie had laid his hands on the man, yelled, “You hit my brother?” and cried “B---h!” before pulling a stiff-arm move and slapping at him. The driver kept begging the man. “Brother, help me out, please,” he pleaded. “You know what is right.” Coly, reached at his home Sunday in the Bronx, said he could not talk about the incident, based on the advice of his lawyer. Cops caught up to Sharpton a few hours later on W. 46th St. and took her into custody on charges including petty larceny. They gave her a desk appearance ticket and sent her home. She wasn’t charged with assault because the cabbie wasn’t injured, a police source said.
Her famous dad (photo below inset) told The News on Sunday that the cell-phone footage shows the dustup was less serious than the original “projection,” that she “just went and did something and smacked the guy in the face.”
He added that “the video further raises the questions that I raised originally.”
“Now, the rest will have to be litigated,” he said.
Her lawyer has also said there was no “criminal act.”
“What was reported did not happen,” said Michael Hardy, Sharpton’s lawyer told the News on Saturday.
“There are no actual formal charges yet because she was released on a desk appearance ticket. In terms of any criminal act, I don’t believe there was any criminal act.”