The home health aide of famous architect I.M. Pei was charged with attacking the 98-year-old man in his Upper East Side home earlier this month, authorities said on Thursday.
Eter Nikolaishvili, 28, was charged with second-degree attack and released without bail during her arraignment on Tuesday. An attorney for Nikolaishvili did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Nikolaishvili was accused of grabbing Pei’s right arm on Dec. 13 and twisting it, leaving “round red marks that covered the majority of his right forearm,” according to the criminal complaint.
Pei, who designed the Lourve museum in Paris and the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library in Boston, also suffered bruising and cuts on his right arm, causing him to bleed.
Nikolaishvili reportedly hurt Pei when she tried to grab a phone for him, according to the New York Post. Pei had apparently threatened to call police on his health aide for doing “something bad,” according to the paper.
Pei was born in China in 1917, and obtained a bachelor’s degree in architecture from MIT in 1940, according to his website. He has received many awards, including the Medal of Freedom from President George H. W. Bush in 1993 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Institution’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2003.
