‘No plea deal ... go to jail’
Subway operator faces accused basher, who pleads not guilty
A financial professional accused of slugging a train operator during an argument in a Coney Island subway stop last year pleaded not guilty Wednesday in a Brooklyn courtroom packed with angry subway workers.
“It’s hurtful to see him again,” said Tanya Hinton McCray, the MTA subway train operator who told police she was punched by Jean-Francois Coste on Dec. 16 at the Stillwell Ave.-Coney Island station in Brooklyn.
“I hope justice gets served for him,” McCray said. “No plea deal, none. Go to jail.”
Coste, clad in a charcoal suit and a pale-orange surgical mask, did not speak as he was arraigned on a felony second-degree assault charge in Brooklyn Supreme Court hearing.
Defense lawyer David Scott Smith entered Coste’s not guilty plea, later telling Judge Matthew Sciarrino that his client was “exploring possibilities to settle” the matter.
McCray, a 21-year MTA veteran, was leaving the crew room to start her shift as Coste tried to enter, she told the Daily
News.
McCray said Coste tried to pull the door open as she tried to close it, and punched her in the face. At the time of the incident, police sources said Coste was intoxicated and possibly trying to find a bathroom.
Coste, a Brooklyn resident who at the time of the alleged assault was a senior equity analyst at Tocqueville Asset Management, had no prior run-ins with the law, according to police. He was arrested and released without bail.
Canella Gomez, the transit union’s vice president for subway operations, said he wants prosecutors to take the alleged assault seriously — and balked at the idea of a plea deal.
“If this was an NYPD officer, a firefighter, sanitation worker, correction officer, court officer, [an attacker] would be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Gomez said.
“We’re so used to EDPs — emotionally disturbed people — [and] homeless people assaulting us. But now we have executive, white-collar office workers assaulting us,” Gomez said. “It’s very, very important we set an example with this guy.”