Workers nail a victory
Judge KOs charges in racially tinged B’klyn salon brawl
Two Brooklyn nail salon workers who pummeled a customer with brooms in a viral video had assault charges against them dismissed at trial – and a defense attorney says they were victims of a mob mentality fueled by elected officials.
Justice John Hecht tossed charges March 16 against Huiyue Zheng and Ni Len after the Brooklyn district attorney’s office presented its case, ruling there was not sufficient evidence to sustain the allegations.
At the heart of the case was surveillance video from Happy Red Apple Nails capturing the Aug. 3, 2018, brawl sparked by a customer’s frustration over an eyebrow job.
The customer, Christina Thomas, is seen getting into a heated argument over payment with Zheng, Len and other employees of the Chinese-owned business. Soon, one of Thomas’ friends arrives and all hell breaks loose. The salon is wrecked as Thomas and her friend jostle with employees, some of whom smack them with brooms.
An attorney for Zheng,
Scott Tulman, said the video made clear that Thomas started the fight. Nonetheless, the brawl sparked protests and a boycott of the store that forced its closure.
“The community took this up as a cause and shut those people down. There was no basis for that. It was not right. They made this into a racist issue, including the local politicians,” Tulman said. “They were driven out of business. There was a wrong here.”
But Tony Lindsay, a close friend of Thomas, was outraged at the outcome of the Brooklyn Supreme Court trial.
“This was an egregious miscarriage of justice, and was clearly orchestrated with bias in favor of the defendants,” Lindsay said. “This entire process was insulting and disrespectful to the victims of that gang assault, and we assure you that this is far from over.”
Thomas’ attorney did not respond to an inquiry.
Thomas’ grandmother Thelma Medley was also furious that charges were dropped against the workers. She was caught in the nail salon melee.
“Those people beat me and my grandbaby like animals for no reason,” Medley said in a statement through a friend. “Everything they did to us was caught on video, and they still got off. This whole case showed us that the court doesn’t give a damn about black women.”
The Brooklyn DA dropped misdemeanor assault charges against Thomas following heated protests and a boycott of the nail salon, which had been open for 10 years. An online petition “to remove toxic establishments” received nearly 10,000 signatures. The dispute evoked a showdown in the 1990s between black residents and a Korean-owned grocery store not far from the East Flatbush nail salon.
Attorney Larry Wright, who represented Len, said both nail salon employees were willing to plead guilty to noncriminal offenses like disorderly conduct or harassment, which would have avoided concerns about their immigration status. But the DA’s office declined to agree to such a plea deal, prompting them to go to trial, Wright said.
“Some people really blew it up,” Wright said. “It really was a tempest in a teapot.”
Medley said she had pressed for other nail salon workers to be charged, to no avail.
“The more we pushed for them to press charges … the more they tried to make us sympathize with their immigration status,” Medley said. “Why is that more important than what they did to us?”
Borough President Eric Adams, who was among the pols who criticized the nail salon employees, referred the Daily News to an earlier statement calling the brawl “deeply disturbing and unacceptable.” Assemblywoman Diana Richardson (D-Brooklyn), who denounced the salon workers for committing a “hate crime” and called for the business to close, did not respond to an email request for comment on the outcome of the case.
The Brooklyn DA’s office called the brawl “a disturbing incident that our office took seriously.”
“We presented the evidence at trial and will continue to vigorously pursue cases when members of the Brooklyn community are violently attacked,” the DA said in a statement.
Tulman insisted that the law was on the nail salon workers’ side.
“If you are attacked like that in your own store, you have no duty to retreat,” Tulman said. “You can abate the menace.”