Man who brutally beat gay couple with a chair and claimed to be the ‘real victim’, found guilty
A man who brutally beat two gay men with a chair in a New York restaurant, and then claimed he was the “real victim”, has been found guilty.
Bayna Lekhiem El-Amin previously claimed that he only attacked the men because he “feared for his life.”
A video emerged of the attack earlier this year, featuring a gay couple having a wooden chair smashed over their heads in a New York City restaurant.
The couple, Ethan York-Adams and Jonathan Snipes, say they were targeted in Dallas BBQ last November.
They said they were victims of the attack based on their sexual orientations.
After being hit repeatedly, the couple were thrown to the ground and kicked by their attacker, who used anti-gay slurs and then smashes them over the head with the chair.
The couple, according to reports, had knocked over a drink leading to the attack.
Snipes said they were called “white faggots”, and that one of his teeth was knocked loose in the attack.
However, their attacker, Bayna El-Amin, claims the pair set him up and his “only crime was to be a man of colour wrongly accused by his attacker, a privileged white man.”
El-Amin, who is also gay, says he plans to sue the pair over their “false claims” after he says they “destroyed his life.”
In a complaint filed in Manhattan Supreme Court, El-Amin claims he was attacked by Snipes first and has been wrongly labeled a “homophobic hate criminal.”
He says he feared for his life during the incident and was “left with no choice,” but to throw the chair “at his attackers, knocking them to the ground and giving plaintiff time safely to retreat from his attackers by walking out of the restaurant.”
El-Amin also claims that the video of the attack was edited, and that Snipes lies have destroyed his life.
After the video went viral, he claims he was left “completely isolated and ostracised from society” and had to go into hiding after receiving death threats.
He sought damages for assault and battery against Snipes and York-Adams, negligence against the restaurant, and defamation against several witnesses to the attack.
But the Manhattan jury found him guilty on Thursday of all charges except one count of assault.
Sentencing is set for 14 June.
