A white Manhattan hospital worker accused of taking a Citi Bike from a young black man ‘paid’ for the two-wheeler her lawyer said.
Justin Marino is representing the pregnant Bellevue Hospital employee who was filmed in a now viral video which shows the incident taking place.
The female hospital employee — donning blue scrubs emblazoned with ‘NYC Health + Hospitals — could be seen screaming for help and accusing a black man of assault, even tearing up as a crowd gathered around them.
In the video a friend of the man can be heard defending him saying the woman – branded a ‘Karen’ after the video – was in fact trying to steal from him.
Marino has vehemently denied these allegations on behalf of the hospital worker and told the New York Post they have the receipts to prove it.
A White Manhattan hospital worker accused of taking a Citi Bike from a young black man ‘paid’ for the two-wheeler her lawyer claims
Justin Marino is representing the pregnant Bellevue Hospital employee who was filmed in a now viral video which shows the incident taking place
The first receipt obtained by the outlet allegedly shows the bike being taken out before it was re-locked one minute later, which Marino said is the bike seen in the video.
The second receipt allegedly shows another bike being taken out a minute later from the same docking station – the bike Marino said his client used to get home after being ‘heckled and pressured to find a new bike’ by the group.
Marino said that his client is six-months pregnant and was placed on leave by NYC Health + Hospitals this week after the encounter caught on tape – but added that the interaction was ‘incomplete and lacking facts.’
He claims that his client finished a 12-hour shift and got on an available bike which ‘no individuals were on or touching’ paying for it through the Citi Bike app.
‘One or more individuals in that group physically pushed her bike (with her on it) back into the docking station, causing it to re-lock,’ Marino said in the written statement.
Its been claimed that one individual then covered the bike’s QR code stopping her from paying for it again so she could leave, Marino insisted to the outlet.
‘In blocking the QR code, this individual’s arm was touching my client’s pregnant stomach, a condition of which she had made them aware,’ he added.
‘Throughout this time and for the remainder of the video, roughly five individuals were telling her to get off the bike and heckling her.
‘The fact anyone would treat another person like this is tragic, especially a visibly pregnant woman.’
DailyMail.com has contacted Marino and Bellevue Hospital for comment.
A roughly 90 second video of the incident was posted on TikTok and Twitter and shows an unidentified woman arguing with a black man outside of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital over the weekend near a Citi Bike rack.
One of the men’s friends tells the woman that he is recording the situation as the black man has his hand on the bike.
The woman then screams for help, saying: ‘Help! Help me! Please help me!’
But the man’s friend, offscreen, tells her: ‘This is not your bike.’
The hospital employee then cries out for help again, and asks the black man to ‘please get off.’
She then takes off her hospital badge in an apparent effort to hide her identity, as one of the men could be heard asking her: ‘You know you’re not getting this bike?’
At one point, the woman accuses the black man of assault saying he’s ‘hurting my unborn baby,’ though the man says she put his stomach on his hand
The woman could even be seen crying in the video as she hopped onto the disputed bike
In the video, the unidentified Bellevue Hospital employee could be seen screaming for help
The woman only screams for help again and tries to get onto the rental bike, before swiping the black man’s phone.
‘Why are you taking his phone?’ one of the man’s friends asks the woman. ‘What’s wrong with you?
‘Do not touch his phone, do not touch his phone,’ he tells the hospital employee.
She then tells the man that he’s ‘hurting my unborn baby,’ to which the black man replies: ‘You put your stomach on my hand.’
The woman then turns around and starts to once again scream for help, at which point one of her coworkers approaches.
The black man tries to explain: ‘This is my bike, it’s on my account’ and tells the woman to ‘please move.’
At that point, the woman can be seen apparently crying — though the black man’s friends say they are fake tears.
She then continues to climb onto the bike, hysterical with tears, as her coworker suggests they just ‘reset the bike.’
But the man’s friends continue to defend him, saying, ‘It’s his, it’s his.’
One of the friends then again accuses the woman of ‘fake crying,’ telling her to stop, while the black man asks her to ‘stop touching me.’
The woman then steps off the bike and apparently stops crying as she pulls out her phone.
‘Not a tear came down miss,’ the friend says as the video ends.
Under Citi Bike’s policies, anyone who keeps a bike out for longer than 45 minutes at a time will be charged $0.17 for each additional minute, and may have their account suspended.
If a customer does not return a bike within 24 hours, the account holder will be charged a lost or stolen bike fee of $1,200 plus tax.
A roughly 90 second video of the incident was posted on TikTok and Twitter and shows an unidentified woman arguing with a black man outside of New York City’s Bellevue Hospital (pictured) over the weekend near a Citi Bike rack
Bellevue Hospital has announced that it is investigating the incident involving its employee
A spokesperson for the New York Police Department said it did not receive any 911 calls or reports about the incident, but is aware of the video.
Meanwhile, Bellevue Hospital said in a statement it is investigating the incident.
‘We have recently become aware of an incident that occurred off campus over the weekend and appears to involve one of our employees,’ it said.
‘We are sorry this happened, and we are reviewing the incident.’
The hospital added that it is ‘committed to providing the highest quality of care to all New Yorkers with dignity, cultural sensitivity and compassion.’
The incident has been compared to Amy Cooper, dubbed the ‘Central Park Karen,’ who called the police on a black birdwatcher in 2020 and lost her job.
Cooper – who accused a black birdwatcher of threatening her in 2020 lost a lawsuit against her former employer for firing her after the incident in September 2022.
At the time she claimed she was illegally fired and falsely portrayed as a racist by New York investment house Franklin Templeton following the May 25, 2020, incident.
The following day, May 26, 2020, Franklin Templeton said in a tweet – which was liked 277,000 times – that it performed a legitimate investigation and ‘determined indisputably’ that Cooper was racist and terminated her.
