Previously unseen footage has revealed new footage showing the moments before investment banker Jonathan Kaye punched a woman at a Brooklyn Pride event.
Kaye, 52, turned himself in Monday and was charged with second- and third-degree assault stemming from the June 8 incident.
A new video shared with The Washington Post by the victims’ lawyers shows Kaye engaging in a brief, terse exchange of words with an anti-Israel LGBTQ group near the corner of Fifth Avenue and Third Street in Park Slope.
One of the group members splashed what appeared to be water on Kay, at which point the banker shoved one of the members away and asked in disbelief, “Are you going to throw something at me?”
The group taunted Kaye, and moments later someone else doused him with red Gatorade, as evidenced by a plastic bottle being hit in Kaye’s face in previous coverage of the incident.
This final taunt enraged him, and he lunged at the fleeing group. He appeared to try to grab someone, but then slipped on the edge of the sidewalk and fell briefly onto the crosswalk, the video shows.
“Great, you got what you deserved. Why would you do that?” one of the group members sneered at him.
Kaye rose to his feet and began wrestling several at a time before shoving a woman wearing a black sleeveless shirt to the ground, eliciting yells of “Oh!” from the crowd.
As Kaye throws a right hook, someone appears to try to grab his arm, but the hook lands off-camera, after which Kaye walks away as several people scream.
“You’re a terrible person! Die! Die!” someone shouted as Kay gave a thumbs up without turning around.
Ron Kuby, a lawyer representing both the woman who was punched and the woman who was pushed, welcomed Kaye’s arrest.
“It’s a good thing he was arrested and that he’s under some form of prison control. My clients don’t want him to go to prison. They want him to be under some form of control. They hope he learns to control his anger. They hope he comes out of this experience a better person…” Kuby said Monday.
Mr. Kaye, who was initially placed on administrative leave amid the outrage that followed the incident, resigned from Manhattan-based investment bank Moelis & Co. last week.
After the incident, flyers with his picture, name, address and occupation listed and the message “Women Hit in Pride Parade” were distributed in his neighborhood.
Wearing a blue polo shirt, beige cardigan and gray dress pants and a navy blue mask over his face, he made no eye contact or answered reporters’ questions as detectives escorted him out of the NYPD’s 78th Precinct in Prospect Heights just before noon Monday.
Kaye’s lawyer, Danya Perry, doubled down on the accusations on Monday, saying Kaye was “threatened, assaulted and surrounded by a mob of violent anti-Semitic protesters.”
“We expect the District Attorney to fully and fairly consider these facts, as well as the sudden increase in anti-Semitic acts, protests and attacks that are ravaging our city,” she added.
“We will vigorously fight against this injustice and look forward to a complete exoneration for our client.”
As for claims that Kaye was responding to anti-Semitism, Kuby countered, “There was no slur. They didn’t know he was Jewish. They didn’t know he was a supporter of Israel. He just seemed like a crazy guy.”
