A Chicago bar owner is hitting back at a TikTokker after he claims in a viral video that he was “manhandled” and “thrown down the stairs” by one of his bouncers.
Carmen Rossi, owner of the Hubbard Inn, claims that Julia Leal, 22, defamed the restaurant in a way that she says can be easily refuted with surveillance footage. According to a complaint obtained by the Chicago Tribune.
He said the now-deleted video caused more than a dozen groups to cancel reservations, the restaurant received an onslaught of one-star reviews on Yelp and threats of violence against staff, and the restaurant received more than $30,000 in damages. The company reportedly suffered a loss in revenue.
In the video, Leal claims that he and a friend were assaulted by a security guard in the second-floor bathroom in the early morning hours of March 10.
“So they catch us quickly. They don’t even give us a chance to walk out on our own,” she said in a video that others reposted on TikTok.
“Right away, this guy grabs me, grabs my arm, shoves me, and is manhandling me,” Leal said, claiming that a security guard pulled her purse and dragged her outside.
“I’m just being pushed down,” she continues. “He made me fly down the stairs.”
The guard then “took me a second time, shoved me again, and blew me down the rest of the stairs,” Leal claimed.
She called it “the craziest experience I’ve ever had” and urged other Chicagoans to avoid the restaurant, which was “absolutely ridiculous,” according to a lawsuit filed Monday in Cook County Court. said.
Leal also filed a police report saying he visited a local hospital in the aftermath and was treated for “bruises to his arm and head” from hitting the floor. The Chicago Sun-Times reported.
But the store’s owner, Carmen Rossi, hit back at Leal’s claims. in its own video last weekIn it, Leal’s statements are stitched together with surveillance footage that shows her and her friend safely descending the stairs and exiting the restaurant with security behind them.
It appears from the video that the security guard never touched either girl.
“This clearly contradicts the false claim that she was ‘grabbed’.”[ed]”Manhandle”[d]’ and ‘drag[ed] “He exited the bathroom, went into the hallway, was ‘pushed’ down the stairs, and she ‘jumped down the stairs,'” the complaint states, according to the Tribune.
Additionally, Rossi claims that after posting the video, he contacted Lille and asked for it to be removed, but received no response.
He was then forced to file a lawsuit at the request of Lille’s lawyers. I uploaded another video “This is an attack on our system,” a spokesperson for Rossi told the Tribune.
“We are a small business and our staff are family, so we had no choice but to take this step,” he said.
Leal’s lawyer argued that the restaurant footage presented a “misleading narrative” and called on the public to avoid “hasty judgment and victim shaming”.
There is an unexplained two-minute gap in the video footage, which does not show the part of the stairs where Leal was allegedly pushed.
Rossi’s lawyers also point out in the complaint that the edited footage includes a 45-second gap and does not show eight flights of stairs.
Police told the Sun-Times that as of Monday, no one had been arrested in the now-popular case.
The case will go to court on May 23rd. According to NBC Chicago.
