Wealthy banker who slugged woman at NYC Pride festival quits job
The New York banker who police say punched a woman in the face after a heated discussion about the Israel-Hamas War at a Brooklyn Pride event has resigned from his job.
Jonathan Kaye, 52, previously worked as a managing director at Moelis & Company, a publicly traded investment bank. He had overseen the Global Business Services franchise at the firm since 2013. Previously, he worked as the managing director of Citi Bank’s Global Mergers & Acquisitions Group.
Melissa Chiles, a spokesperson for Moelis & Company, confirmed the information in an email to The Independent.
“Jonathan Kaye has resigned and is no longer with the firm,” she said on Monday.
The man was caught on camera earlier this month apparently hitting the woman in the face following a tense argument. In the video, the man claimed that the woman, who has not been identified, “threw s*** all over me.”
According to the New York Post, it wasn’t clear how the exchange escalated. The victim, who is reportedly in her 30s, suffered “a broken nose, lacerations and a black eye”. Officials with the New York City Police Department are still investigating the incident. The Independent has reached out to Kaye and NYPD for comment.
Sources close to the man told the Daily Mail that a group of women with “Queers for Palestine”, an advocacy organization, taunted him because of his Jewish ancestry after a parade.
The banker then accused them of being on the “wrong side.” The women then targeted the man, one of his friends said, and threw liquids on him. Kaye apparently didn’t know what the liquid was and the woman shouted slurs at him.
“He fell or he was chest bumped, and can’t remember that bit. But he ended up on the pavement with them four over him. He got up and swung at one as he was trying to escape and then he ran,” the source told the outlet.
In a statement to The Daily Beast, the man said Kaye feared for his physical safety when he was “surrounded by an angry mob of agitators who encircled him, physically assaulted him, and threw liquids on him.”
It continued: “He could not identify any of these individuals and was left bloodied from the attack.” Kaye had a bloodied ankle after he fell during the incident.
He reportedly lives in a $4m home in the borough’s Park Slope neighborhood, holds a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University, and graduated cum laude from Duke University School of Law.
