The man under arrest for allegedly beating a woman in a Midtown bar bathroom, leaving her unconscious with a fractured skull, a broken nose and a broken eye socket, spoke in a jailhouse interview today and expressed remorse. Mbarek Lafrem said, "I wasn’t myself. I was somebody else. I’ve never acted like that before. I made a mistake. I have to pay for it. I’m in the hole."
Lafrem, a Pennsylvania resident who was working on a construction site in the city, was arrested after police released surveillance video of him leaving the West 48th Street bar Social. According to court papers, he told detectives that he acted in self-defense after following the victim into the ladies' bathroom, "I went into the bathroom and she started yelling at me. She was coming towards me so I grabbed her by the arms. She was trying to push me so I punched her in the face twice and pushed her back in the stall. She fell into the stall and hit her head." But now he says, "I remember dancing with her. I remember being in the bathroom with her, and I remember her screaming... I wouldn’t want that to happen to my sisters." And regarding his victim, "I'd give her my life."
The Daily News reports that Lafrem was "drinking beers, shots of Jack Daniels, and a high-octane drink called a Lemon Drop" before going to Social. He also suggested that "somebody might have put something in my drink." And he also claims he didn't remember what happened when he woke up the next day—he saw "blood on his T-shirt and noticed that his knuckles were cut up"—but when he saw the news, "I knew it was me."
Lafrem, a Moroccan national (the News says he moved to the U.S. in 2004, after getting a visa through the lottery, is charged with attempted murder, assault, and attempted rape.
