A young woman who allegedly attacked an Uber driver with pepper spray in Midtown this week did so because of the color of his skin, the driver claimed to The Post on Saturday.
“Her friend was yelling, ‘Jen, Jen, what are you doing? What’s going on?'” the driver, Shoher Mahmoud, recounted Wednesday’s incident. “Her friends ask, ‘Why did you do that?’ And she says, ‘Because he’s brown.'”
According to a video shared on Reddit, Instagram and YouTube, Jennifer Guilbeau, 23, was riding in the back seat of a car with another woman at the intersection of Lexington Avenue and East 66th Street around 11:30 p.m. when the driver, 45, suddenly sprayed a hazardous substance into the driver’s eyes.
Mahmood said he picked up the women in Midtown but did not speak to them before the attack.
“They’re talking to each other,” he said. “I’m not talking to them. My job is to drive them. I started driving straight up Central Park Traverse, drove straight up to 65th and Lexington, and all of a sudden this girl sprays me with pepper spray for no reason.”
The driver, believing the women were trying to rob him of his car and mobile phone, jumped out of his car after the attack began, but as the vehicle continued to move slowly he returned inside, where the women continued to spray him.
“This is totally ridiculous,” he said. “I didn’t do anything and she pepper sprayed me. Pepper spray is illegal. She attacked a driver for no reason. This is a hate crime.”
The driver, a 45-year-old from Elmhurst, Queens, called 911, but the suspect began to flee.
“She tried to run,” he said, “but her friend wasn’t going anywhere and was calling out, ‘Jen, come here.’ She got a block away and the police arrived.”
Police said Guilbeault has been served with a summons on the assault charge and is due to appear in court at a date yet to be determined. Police are not investigating the assault as a hate crime, a police spokesman said.
Mahmoud said he had spoken briefly to his family about the attack, but that his daughter was very upset and that he himself was distressed by it.
“I’m not 100 percent mentally OK, but I have to work,” the driver said. “I have three children, a wife and my mother living with me.”
The driver, who has three children aged 17, 14 and one, wants to tell the perpetrator to treat people better.
“It’s the 21st century,” he says. “The world has gotten smaller. People can work from anywhere, watch videos from anywhere.”
