The homeless man at the center of a heartwarming TikTok video that raised $400,000 in donations reportedly has a violent past.
A video posted on social media showed the fashion intern walking past a man begging for tea before the two spent the day together.
Video blogger Sanai Graydon eventually put him in a hotel room and helped pay for his medication.
Greden has since started a fundraiser for the man, who is also battling cancer, and has already raised an astonishing $403,000.
“He asked for tea and the rest is history,” said Sanai Greden, who recently moved to the capital for university. This week’s interview on Fox 5 DC.
However, the same station later found a woman who said in the video that she had once been severely assaulted by the same man, and who apparently had a criminal history.
The homeless man was identified by the victim as Alonzo Douglas Hebron. According to Fox 5 DC.
“I’m speechless,” she said of the viral video in which he appeared. “I don’t understand how someone could act like this. He’s a sociopath. He has no remorse.”
Washington, D.C., police said in a statement. June 2020 News Release Hebron allegedly assaulted the woman, stole things from her and fled the scene. He was arrested a few days later. Footage of the attack showed a man putting a scarf over a woman’s head before beating her as she slept outside the Methodist church, Fox 5 DC reported.
Hebron was sentenced to five years in prison in 2012 after stabbing a man in the back with a screwdriver during a fight. The U.S. Attorney’s Office said at the time: The victim bled profusely from the stabbing and was taken to the hospital.
The woman who spoke to Fox 5 DC said she doesn’t blame Grayden for helping her.
The woman, who asked to remain anonymous, said she was “heartbroken” after seeing the TikTok video documenting the good deed.
“First of all, kudos to the woman who did this. She meant it in a good way, so I applaud her. I know it was a tough job for her to do that. But to portray him as something he simply isn’t…”
