One of three thugs accused of using an arsenal of weapons to bludgeon a tourist within inches of his life in the West Village exuberantly hugged his lawyer Monday after he was found not guilty on all charges in a Manhattan court.
It a took the jury four days to return the not guilty verdict for Mahmoud Habib who – unlike his two co-defendants – didn’t appear on surveillance video throwing a punch or clutching a weapon.
“The people saw the truth and I thank the jury for what they did,” said Habib, grinning widely as he left Manhattan Supreme Court.
The four-week trial stemmed from a drunken melee on MacDougal Street in the twilight hours of Jan. 13. The three codefendants got into a fight with a group of tourists from Massachusetts and were accused of using a baseball bat, tire iron and parking club retrieved from the trunks of their cars to bash victim Kevin McCarron into unconsciousness.
“He was wrongly charged from the beginning,” said Habib’s defense lawyer Aymen Aboushi. “The alleged victims were the attackers and he had to go through this ordeal and wait nine months for justice.”
The news wasn’t so promising for Habib’s co-defendants Hatem Farsakh and Sherif Rizk who were found guilty of felony assault charges and face a minimum of two years in prison. They dodged the top charge of attempted murder.
Rizk, a graduate student at Brooklyn College, threw his head back and bit his lip when he heard the word guilty as his family members openly wept in the courtroom.
“My client is very upset,” said Rizk’s lawyer Spencer Leeds.
Convicted on the most serious counts, Farsakh jumped bail during pretrial hearings and was last sighted clearing customs in Sweden.
At trial the most persuasive testimony came from the victim, 24, of Andover Mass who told jurors he suffered permanent brain damage from the brutal early-morning beat down which left him with a fractured skull.
Farsakh told police the fight began when a member of McCarron’s group used a racial slur aimed at their Arab background.
“This was a brutal and savage assault, in which the defendants acted together to inflict as much pain and injury as possible,” said Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance.