A New York mannequin says he was left with a damaged jaw and lacking enamel throughout a brutal theft exterior a swanky Manhattan lounge — and is now planning to sue the evening spot, arguing its safety did nothing to cease the assault, The Submit has realized.
Adam Byrd, 33, had simply left the East Village’s Little Sister Lounge with a pal on March 16 when a gaggle of males punched, kicked and beat him with a belt earlier than snatching a $35,000 necklace off his neck in a “focused’ assault, he stated.
However Byrd claims the bar’s bouncers refused to assist regardless of being mere steps away throughout the beatdown.
“Safety is three ft from this example and watched this occur, with the belt and stomping to the face,” Byrd advised The Submit on Thursday.
The mannequin and actor — who stated he was nonetheless rattled a month after the assault — plans to sue the safety employees and Tao Group Hospitality, which owns Little Sister Lounge, for negligence, his lawyer, Anthony C. Sears, stated.
Byrd stated he was strolling out of the lounge, situated on East eleventh Road, close to Fourth Avenue, when the attackers got here out of nowhere and jumped his pal.
“I see my good friend actually inside 4 seconds of strolling out of the venue, he will get sucker punched by one man after which sucker punched by one other man,” Byrd stated in a cellphone interview.
One of many assailants allegedly yanked off his buddy’s Rolex, earlier than turning to Byrd and pummeling him.
“My again is turned. I hear footsteps working as much as me and the subsequent factor I do know I get up to a stomp,” Byrd recalled, including the brutes pinned him down and elbowed his physique.
The attackers then pulled out a belt.
“They had been beating me within the face with belts… they had been beating me whereas I used to be unconscious for over a minute,” Byrd stated.
“They had been making an attempt to tear the chain off my neck nevertheless it wouldn’t come off,” he stated about his 22-inch Cuban white gold diamond encrusted necklace. “They had been stomping my face down onto the pavement.”
He stated he was pleading with the bouncers to do one thing.
“I’m actually begging for assist,” he recalled. “I’m asking ‘please, can someone name the cops?”
One of many bouncers got here as much as him and stated “No, Byrdie,” he claimed, including that he believes he was arrange and that the safety might have been a part of the alleged plot.
Byrd stated he ultimately bumped into the road, stopping a police officer after his attackers fled.
He was taken by EMS to Mount Sinai Beth Israel Hospital, police stated.
Byrd spent a number of days within the hospital, the place he underwent emergency surgical procedure on the within of his jaw and was left with wires in his mouth.
“I don’t have feeling on my jaw on the surface from my chin to the again facet of the jaw… They needed to mend one in every of my nerves,” he stated, including he wants six months or extra of restoration.
Byrd stated a detective advised him he was focused, and he’s been left feeling paranoid since.
“I by no means would have imagined that they’d have seen me getting stomped within the face and never solely not assist however guarantee I didn’t get any help,” he stated of the safety guards.
Sears, of private damage agency Shulman & Hill, stated it’s one in every of “essentially the most heinous instances of negligent safety” he’s ever seen.
“This case highlights a disturbing actuality: the negligence of ‘safety guards’ to take any measure, in any respect, to guard membership patrons,” he stated.
The Tao Group didn’t reply to a request for remark Thursday.
Police stated the suspected assailants stay at massive.
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