A New York judge awarded $4.5 million dollars in compensation to Taj Patterson, a black and gay man who claimed to have been partially blinded in a severe beating in 2013 by members of a Hasidic security patrol in Williamsburg.
“It’s been nine years,” Patterson said . “A lot of comings and goings. Many legal scenarios that he did not understand. It was a long process.”
“It’s been a tough fight from day one. You are dealing with people who have a very close connection with the police and political figures”
Zahra Patterson, mother of the victim
“You can never put a price on loss of sight,” said Zahra Patterson, Taj’s mother, who currently is 31 years old. “This has been a tough fight from day one. You are dealing with people who have a very close connection to the police and political figures.”
Patterson’s attorney says now faces the daunting task of collecting money from the “Williamsburg Safety Patrol,” also known by its Hebrew name, “Shomrim.” “The Hasidic community was very good at raising money for the defense, but I don’t know how good they’ll be at raising money for the verdict,” said Andrew Stoll.
Court records show that the police patrol security and each of the five individual defendants stopped responding to the lawsuit and were declared in absentia, a status defined by officials as “an official judicial decision in favor of one party when the other party does not respond or go to court on the trial date.”
Aaron Twersky, the lawyer who represented the security patrol for years, withdrew from the case in June and in a letter to the court said the organization stopped cooperating with him and swindled his fees.
For To add further complexity, the security patrol admitted at 2015 in a letter filed with the court that did not have insurance, records show.
A pes ar of the lack of insurance, records show that the city has donated several hundred thousand dollars to the Williamsburg Safety Patrol and its affiliates since 2014, including $93,250 in the fiscal year 2023 from the discretionary fund of the City Council.
Among the councilors who approved funds for the current fiscal year are Inna Vernikov and Lincoln Restler of Brooklyn and Council Speaker Adrienne Adams highlighted Daily News.
The case goes back to the early morning of December 1, 2013, when Patterson was walking home around 4 : 30 am by Flushing Av and about 10 Hasidic men began to attack him with homophobic insults.
Within the first 24 hours, the Precinct 90 NYPD classified the attack as a misdemeanor by a lone assailant and marked the case “final, no arrests, CLOSED.”
Four people testified as witnesses and the Police had the license plate of one of the assailant’s vehicles. And Patterson and his mother put pressure on the police and about a week later the NYPD began investigating the case as a hate crime.
Five men were arrested on assault charges. Charges were dropped against two, while two others pleaded guilty to misdemeanor unlawful imprisonment in 2016.
The fifth suspect, Mayer Herskovic, was convicted of gang assault in 2017, but his conviction was overturned in 2018 by an appeals court on the grounds that there was no Sufficient evidence to charge him.
Patterson filed lawsuits in state and federal courts. The federal case was dismissed in 2016, but the state case continued. And last September 19 Judge Miriam Sunshine issued the award in favor of the claimant. The only people in the courtroom that day were the judge, Patterson, her mother, and her attorney Stoll.
2023
The functionaries of the Williamsburg Safety Patrol, attorneys for the defendants and themselves declined to respond to requests for comment from the Daily News.