You'll recall the vicious fight between two senior citizens—both refugees from Soviet Russia—over a parking spot in Borough Park, which left a 99-year-old man with a broken nose and broken ribs. Yesterday the alleged antagonist, 83-year-old Gersh Gofman, postponed his hernia-related doctor appointment to appear in court to fight charges of second-degree assault and weapons possession. After a grand-jury indicted him last month, Gofman was offered the chance to plead guilty to second-degree attempted assault in exchange for probation. But a man who's willing to (allegedly) beat another senior citizen with a steering wheel lock for a parking space isn't about to give up without a fight.
It all started when the victim, Steve Pulwers, who lives above a doctor's office in Borough Park, noticed that Gofman's car was blocking the driveway. Pulwers knocked on Gofman's window to get him out of the way, but Gorfman refused, claiming that he wanted to stay close so that his ailing wife wouldn't have to walk too far. The disagreement swiftly got physical, as Pulwers tells the Daily News, "This guy knocked me to the ground like a tiger, with his knees. Like a tiger he jumped on my body and punched me how much he wanted. I lose power because I'm not such a young man. He could kill a cow." Indeed, Gofman shook a reporter's hand outside court yesterday with "vice-like intensity," declaring, "I'm an old man."
Pulwers still has pain in his ribs and tells the Post, "In my face, I feel pain. A lot. I take, every day, Tylenols, three times." When told Gofman refused the plea deal, Pulwers said, "Listen, I'm too old to go find a lawyer or something. If the court send him to jail, okay, and if not, what am I going to do?" Whatever the legal outcome, the good news is that Gofman has not made good on his threat to come back and cut Pulwers's balls off. He'll turn 100 in two weeks, and when asked how he'll celebrate, he tells the News, "What I could be doing? My wife make food, we make a shot, have a little vodka."
