A 41-year-old man was awaiting arraignment Tuesday night for allegedly bashing two gay men over the head with a chair at Chelsea's Dallas BBQ restaurant in May.
Bayna-Lehkiem el-Amin, from the Mott Haven section of the Bronx, turned himself in to the 7th Precinct in the East Village, where he was charged with two counts each of felony assault and attempted assault for the attack, which was captured on cellphone videos and circulated on the web.
In addition to two sealed arrests in Manhattan in 2012 and 2013, el-Amin has 16 prior arrests going back to 1993 in Georgia, Alabama, Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania for crimes including assault, forgery, drug possession, larceny and credit card fraud, according to the NYPD.
In an interview with the website glistsociety.com in May, El Amin said he had been assaulted first and that "I was the victim. People don't realize that."
The men hit with the chair in the video, identified in media reports as Jonathan Snipes, 32, and Ethan York-Adams, 25, could not be reached for comment.
El Amin, who complained he had been "vilified and demonized" by the press, insisted that contrary to Snipe's assertions that he had uttered a gay slur, "I can definitely confirm that I did not say anything that was directed toward his race or sexual orientation."
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