A quartet of thugs was convicted of a Lower East Side gang assault today — thanks to crystal clear footage taken by a videographer who happened to be at the scene.
“The first time you see it, it was very disturbing,” alternate juror Diane Doty, 48, of Midtown, said after the verdict in Manhattan Supreme Court. “It was very good,” she said of the violent footage.
Victim Kyam Washington, 37, was bashed repeatedly in the head during the May, 2010 melee at Essex and Rivington streets, suffering a cracked skull and loss of hearing in one ear.
Washington refused to cooperate against his attackers. But Manhattan prosecutors wound up not needing him.
Instead, they showed jurors Washington’s medical records and the high-quality footage, which was taken with a professional video camera by a videographer who happened to be filming a concept chewing gum commercial which he’d hoped to present to Wrigley’s as a job pitch.
The footage clearly captured Martrell Tyrell, 22, of Yonkers, bashing a prone and cringing Washington in the head with a concrete-filled traffic cone grabbed off the street.
Tyrell now faces up to 25 years prison on first degree gang assault and first degree assault. His co-defendants, Shadia Brackman, 22, Andrew McCray, 21, and Christopher Montanez, 28, face up to 15 years on their convictions for second degree gang assault and second degree assault.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Marcy Kahn set April 5 for sentencing.