He’s the Energizer Bunny on a stationary bike.
Notoriously noisy spin-class smackdown victim Stuart Sugarman has claimed he was in “excruciating” and “searing” pain after getting pummeled on his bike by a furious fellow spinner at an East 85th Street Equinox gym. But he actually kept right on vigorously pedaling and annoyingly grunting, according to testimony yesterday in the bizarre misdemeanor assault case.
“Stu insisted on finishing the class,” spin-class instructor Al Sipzener told jurors of the immediate aftermath to the wacky stockbroker-vs.-hedge-funder fitness fracas, which is expected to go to closing arguments today in Manhattan Criminal Court.
“He finished the class,” the instructor testified, “and continued to make noises, though probably not to the degree he was prior to the incident.”
The instructor took the stand yesterday as a witness for the prosecution, which is trying to prove that Sugarman suffered a painful herniated disc last August.
That’s when the hedge-fund manager and the bike he was pedaling were brutally hiked up off its front wheel, then dropped, by the enraged stockbroker two bikes down – who just couldn’t take Sugarman’s grunting and whooping any longer.
But the testimony was just as helpful to the broker, Christopher Carter, 44, who is fighting a possible one-year jail term by arguing that Sugarman, 48, has lied to every cop, prosecutor and doctor he’s spoken to since the incident – all in hopes of a big lawsuit payday.
So far, two eyewitness spinners and both of the class instructors have poked various holes in Sugarman’s testimony Wednesday. Sugarman had told jurors he never gave Carter the finger or shouted curses; not so, some witnesses have countered.
Sugarman had also told jurors Carter hoisted his bike so far up that it was over Carter’s head; not so, all four witnesses have countered. Ditto for Sugarman’s claims that he fell off the bike and then could barely continue his workout.
Prosecutors are apparently hoping that the medical evidence will speak for itself. Their final witness before resting their direct case yesterday was Sugarman’s spine surgeon, Dr. David Michael Matusz of Lenox Hill Hospital.
Sugarman’s MRI scan and a surgery six days after the incident confirmed that the howling hedge-funder had suffered a large and painful herniation in a disc in his neck.
Sugarman could have continued riding his bike, even vigorously, the doctor explained, because disc herniation symptoms typically have a slow onset – becoming manifest anywhere from hours to days after the injury.