Man Gets Nine Years For Assault On Gay Couple In Dallas BBQ

A man accused of attacking a gay couple with a chair in a New York restaurant last year has received a nine-year prison sentence for second-degree assault and first-degree attempted assault.

In May of last year, a video surfaced of a fight that broke out in a Dallas BBQ in New York City between Bayna Lekheim El-Amin and boyfriends Ethan Adams and Jonathan Snipes. The video shows Snipes swatting El-Amin with his tote after he called him and his boyfriend “faggots.” El-Amin then violently assaulted him, cracking a chair over his head and stomping on his body once he collapsed to the ground.

El-Amin’s attorneys tried to argue self-defense as Snipes made the first blow in the altercation.

The prosecution challenged this argument, saying, “The defendant didn’t attack these men because he was scared for his life — he attacked them because Jonathan Snipes humiliated him and he was pissed off.”

Then, the defense tried to argue that the attack was race fueled against El-Amin.

“I feel like my race was involved in that,” El-Amin remarked. If the situation was reversed and I would have went up to them, it would have been different. It wouldn’t have come out the same.”

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arlene Goldberg said, “I just do not see there was any evidence of that.”

On Thursday, Justice Goldberg handed down the nine-year sentence to El-Amin, saying that even if Snipes and Adams had instigated the fight, he had no right to attack them in such a brutal way.