The case against a man accused of a racist attack on a Netflix chef has been dropped after his defense argued that it was a misunderstanding about his dog’s name.
Prosecutors dismissed charges against Irvin Alberto Lara-Rivera this week after a hung jury couldn’t agree on felony assault charges with hate crime enhancements in a case involving Wendy Drew. The incident was caught on video inside a Financial District convenience store in September.
Drew, who is from South Africa and appeared in Netflix’s “You Are What You Eat: A Twin Experiment,” previously told The Standard she was leaving Cafe Terminus when a man walking a dog called her a racial slur. She confronted him, and he began hitting her, she said. She dragged him into a Drumm Street store, where she yelled for bystanders to call 911.
Drew previously told The Standard he had punched her in the head three times outside the store; the public defender’s office said evidence showed this did not happen.
Surveillance video from inside the store, obtained by The Standard, shows Drew fighting with Lara-Rivera. As they scuffle near a fridge, a customer pepper-sprays Lara-Rivera, who holds down Drew and repeatedly punches her, the video shows. A clerk who had been behind the register is seen talking on the phone while pacing. When Drew and Lara-Rivera stand up, she tries to prevent him from leaving the store, but he shoves her out of the way.
She followed him outside and screamed for help. Her boyfriend and several other men ran out of Cafe Terminus and held the man until police arrived, she said.
Her nose was broken, and she sustained a concussion in the attack, she said.
The public defender’s office argued that the dispute started with Drew accosting Lara-Rivera because she misheard him calling to his dog as she spoke on her phone.
The defense said Drew threw a phone at Lara-Rivera’s head and charged at him as he entered the convenience store.
“They know he’s guilty, but I threw the phone,” Drew said Thursday. “It feels like ‘aggressive Black woman,’ and that’s how the defense tried to paint me.”
The public defender’s office said Lara-Rivera said, “Come on, Pas pas,” referring to his dog. But Drew contended she heard something different.
“I was minding my own business,” she said. “He walked by, said the F-word and N-word, and then when I asked, ‘Why are you calling me that?’ he proceeded to shove me to the ground.”
Lara-Rivera spent months in jail because he acted in self-defense, his attorney argued.
“This whole thing began with a misunderstanding, but it resulted in Mr. Lara-Rivera spending months in jail before being strongly vindicated at trial,” said attorney Deborah Awolope. “As a Black woman, I understand the reactions it can stir when you think that someone has used a racial slur, but that is not what happened in this case.”
The jury voted 11-1 in favor of acquitting Lara-Rivera of felony assault and 9-3 to acquit him of felony battery. The hate crime enhancements attached to those charges were dropped by the prosecution after the jury’s decision.
“Although the jury was unable to reach a verdict in this case, we respect the jury’s role, service, and deliberation in this matter,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office said.
Drew, who appeared as a witness in the trial, said the defense tried to minimize the racial element by questioning whether, as a South African who has lived in the U.S. for 20 years, she should have been offended by the slur.
“Even if I was here for three or four years, we understand the dynamic of that word if you consider yourself Black,” Drew said. “At the end of the day, racial slurs hurt me as well. They hit the heart the same way. … What does my immigration status have to do with it? Basically, you’re trying to tell me that I shouldn’t be bothered.”
During her testimony, the defense asked her whether Lara-Rivera pronounced the N-word with a hard “R” sound at the end, according to Drew.
“He didn’t actually spell it out to me,” she said. “It’s the way he said it to me.”