On Sunday night, a Queens couple was arrested and charged with hate crimes for allegedly attacking a group of Hasidic men in Brooklyn because they were not properly social distancing. Now, the attorney for that couple claims that his clients were actually the victims for “speaking out about what they saw,” and that one of them suffered a broken arm as a result of the altercation.
Attorney Kenneth Belkin says his clients, Paulo Pinho, 35, and Clelia Pinho, 46, were on their way home around 8:30 p.m. after completing a shift of grocery delivering when they encountered a large group of ultra-Orthodox Jewish pedestrians in South Williamsburg who were "neither practicing social distancing, nor wearing masks or any other types of protective garb."
Belkin claims the couple were "extremely frustrated by what they saw," and began filming and yelling at the crowd to put masks on, which led to the altercation. Clelia Pinho suffered a broken arm in the incident, and was treated at Woodhull Hospital.
Brooklyn's ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods have seen some of the highest rates of COVID-19 deaths, and there have been incidents over the past month in which Yeshivas were caught holding in-person classes, and large groups have gathered in public for funerals and other events, with some tacitly approved or coordinated by the NYPD.
A police spokesperson told Gothamist that the couple attacked three men, ripping their masks off their faces, punching them in their faces, and making anti-Semitic remarks. They were quoted as yelling, "you Jews are getting us all sick."
But Belkin counters, "To be clear, at no time ever did my clients target anyone because of their religious identity or perceived religious identity...My clients abhor racism and anti-Semitism in all of their forms.”
The couple have been charged with aggravated harassment as a hate crime; they are due in court in September, and if convicted, face up to a year in prison.
During his Monday morning press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio brought up the incident: "It's something that expresses hate, but also creates danger, and that's unacceptable and we're not gonna allow it in this city," he said. "We are treating this incident as a hate crime, so there are serious consequences when someone commits one of these acts. Whether it is this horrible anti-Semitic act that we saw, or the horrible anti-Asian acts we saw in previous weeks, none of these acts of bias and discrimination are acceptable in New York City."
Belkin added that it was "reprehensible for Mayor de Blasio to be commenting on their arrest, as we still live in a free country where all who are arrested are entitled to a presumption of innocence."
