Rev. Al Sharpton’s daughter’s 30th birthday celebration ended in tears early Saturday after she was arrested for attacking a cabbie. And it wasn’t the birthday girl doing the crying, it was the battered and bruised cabbie.
Ashley Sharpton “swung at my face and ended up punching me in the chest,” the distraught Georges Coly told the New York Post outside of his apartment, tears welling up in his eyes.
Sharpton, who works for her father’s National Action Network, is now facing charges of petty larceny and criminal possession of stolen property after she allegedly grabbed the keys from Coly, then assaulted him when he demanded them back.
Ashley Sharpton was charged with petty larceny after she allegedly attacked a cabbie and stole his keys https://t.co/m9HJeeTf1d
— New York Post (@nypost) September 9, 2017
The hack stopped to pick up Sharpton and her friends just before 1 am outside a club on West 46th Street and 11th Avenue, when she and five friends tried to squeeze inside.
“I said ‘No, only four people’ and they argued with me about it,” said Coly, who drives a handicap accessible minivan with only four seats. “They were giving me a hard time.”
When two people exited the car, they “slammed the door and gave me attitude,” he said.
Sharpton and her buds directed him to head to an address near Central Park North, but when Coly got to West 48th Street, the revelers gave him more “attitude,” he said.
“So I just asked them to take another cab and they refused to leave,” he said.
Sharpton then snatched his keys out of the ignition and started “shaking [them] in my face saying, ‘I have the keys, I’m not leaving,’” Coly recalled.
The desperate cabbie asked one of her friends to talk some sense into her, but instead she started walking away.
“I followed her for over a block begging for my keys back and I had to step in front of her and ask,” Coly recalled. That’s when “she swung at my face and ended up punching me in the chest.”
“I don’t have your keys,” she allegedly spat before later admitting she chucked them.
Coly called the police who arrested Sharpton around 3 a.m. on West 45th Street and charged her with petty larceny.
Sharpton had no comment but her lawyer, Michael Hardy, said: “What was reported did not happen.”
The Rev. Al had a similar comment for the New York Daily News. “She told me it didn’t happen the way they said it happened but I can’t speak for a 30-year-old woman,” he said.
The proud dad did wish his daughter a happy birthday Friday on Twitter:
Happy Birthday to my youngest, Ashley. A strong black woman and committed activist. So proud to be your Dad. pic.twitter.com/ld7DyVA6CJ
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) September 8, 2017
Ashley’s sister Dominique, also a NAN employee, has also made a name for herself in New York City. She slapped the city with a $5 million trip-and-fall lawsuit in 2015 after tripping on a city street, claiming that she had permanently injured her ankle.
But shortly after the incident she posted photographs of herself on social media climbing a mountain in Bali.
In her deposition, she said that the injury hasn’t stopped her from dancing in New Orleans.
A Manhattan judge threatened to toss the suit out back in June after she failed to show up at a court appearance and missed four depositions within six months.
Ashley Sharpton, who describes herself as a “Soldier For Change, Ordinary ExtraOrdinaire, Entertainment & Media Entrepreneur, Community Organizer, Millennial and God Lover” on Twitter, has now protected her account.
Last night’s arrest was not her first arrest of the year. Back in February, both she and Eric Garner’s mother were arrested during a protest outside of Trump Tower against the president’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Neil Gorsuch.
“In an act of civil disobedience and in the tradition of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eric Garner’s mom and others were arrested tonight … over President Trump’s SCOTUS nominee Neil Gorsuch,” Sharpton’s spokeswoman, Rachel Noerdlinger, said in a statement, according to the New York Post.
Whether or not Sharpton’s antics last February were actually in the tradition of Dr. King is debatable, but there can be no doubt the civil rights icon would frown on her ” acts of disobedience” Friday night.
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