The millionaire investment banker who allegedly punched a woman in the face at a Brooklyn Pride event last month turned himself in to cops on Monday.
Jonathan Kaye, 52, faces two counts each of third-degree assault and threatening, a misdemeanor, and one count of second-degree harassment, a misdemeanor, for the attack caught on camera that sent the victim tumbling down a slope. the park. returned on June 8, the NYPD said.
His surrender came after the footage exploded online and fliers with his photos were plastered on utility poles throughout the Park Slope neighborhood, where he lives with his family in a $4 million, four-bedroom home.
Kaye, who was initially put on leave due to growing anger, resigned from investment bank Moelis& Co. based in Manhattan last week.
He avoided eye contact and asked fringes of reporters as detectives led him outside the NYPD’s 78th Precinct in Prospect Heights just before noon, wearing a blue polo shirt, beige sweater, gray dress pants and with a sea mask on his face.
As he walked out of Brooklyn Criminal Court hours later, Kaye and his lawyer were surrounded by four protesters who attacked the banker and chased him down the street, calling him a wife beater.
One dressed in black tried to push Kaye from behind and ended up pushing his lawyer. The unknown assailants then got into a black van and sped away.
“He’s a law-abiding man, a middle-aged guy with zero history of violence. He was attacked by a group of violent protesters and defended himself to go home to his family. So, you know, we’re going to present more and more evidence to the DA that this was nothing more than self-defense,” his attorney, Danya Perry, told The Post after Kaye’s arraignment.
The violence erupted on June 8 when Kaye and members of an anti-Israel LGBTQ group fought outside a coffee shop near the corner of Fifth Avenue and Third Street after the Pride event, according to police.
Sources close to Kaye insisted days later that he had only acted in self-defense after the group surrounded him and doused him with liquids.
Perry doubled down on Monday, saying Kaye had been “terrorized, assaulted and surrounded by a group of unruly anti-Semitic protesters.”
“What the previously released video clip does not show is what another video and other evidence we shared with the DA shows: that these agitators formed a ring around him, doused him with two unknown liquids, pushed him to the ground and hurled anti-Semitic slurs at him,” the lawyer said in a statement.
“Terrified and injured, Mr Kaye managed to act in self-defence to escape the situation and return safely to his family.”
The alleged victim, however, insisted that Kaye instigated the attack and denied claims that she and her friends had first hurled anti-Semitic slurs.
“He was literally a tornado of violence,” the woman, identified only as Micah P, told NBC4 last month.
“There was nothing – no profanity was said,” she added. “We didn’t even get a chance to read it. He was furious and terrible. He was a big, strange man who ran up to us and started swinging almost immediately.”
Micah, who claimed chaos broke out after Kaye called them “a bunch of useful idiots”, was forced to throw water at the banker – but only after he allegedly lunged at them.
A 10-second clip of the ordeal, which does not show the moments leading up to the brutal beating, captured a distraught Kaye allegedly walking away from Micah with his jacket covered in liquid.
“It’s good that he’s been arrested and put under some kind of custody,” Ron Kuby, an attorney representing the alleged victim, told The Post on Monday.
“No profanity was thrown. They didn’t know he was Jewish. They didn’t know he was a supporter of Israel – he just seemed like a random crazy man,” he added.
New video footage of the incident from a different angle emerged on Monday, showing the never-before-seen moments leading up to the alleged attack.
In it, Kaye appears to be provoked and tackled by the group, who douse him with water and Gatorade before things get physical.
Kaye was released without bail at his trial.
“We hope that the District Attorney will fully and fairly take into account these facts, along with the wave of anti-Semitic acts, protests and attacks that are destroying our city,” his lawyer said.
“We will aggressively fight the injustice and expect a full vindication for our client.”
Kaye’s next court date is set for August 23.
Additional reporting by Desheania Andrews, Priscilla DeGregory and Chris Nesi