Justin Moore, the attorney for one of the three Black women from Texas who recently made headlines for assaulting a hostess at Carmine’s – which the women say was prompted by that hostess’ use of a racial slur – has taken to Instagram to spotlight a racially charged 2015 situation Carmine’s found itself in.
A report released in October of that year by the New York Post discusses a lawsuit brought forth against Carmine’s by former server Raul Pichardo, who is of Dominican descent and was 22 at the time. Pichardo’s attorney told the Post that “The kitchen staff would mimic a monkey by placing their hands at their sides while jumping around when Mr. Pichardo passed.”
Advertisement
The lawsuit stated that this harassment had begun in 2012, and that when Pichardo addressed the restaurant’s human resources department about it, the Chief Operating Officer yelled that he was “full of sh*t.”
Earlier in 2015, reports state that Pichardo was also one of several servers who had sued Carmine’s over unpaid overtime wages.
READ MORE: Texas Women Face Charges for Assault on Carmine’s Hostess
While the situation in 2015 involved different parties, Moore posted screenshots of the New York Post article (along with videos in the third and fourth slides) to accompany a statement – which includes a paragraph beginning with “Carmine’s has a culture that’s hostile to claims of racial harassment.”
View this post on Instagram
We reached out to Carmine’s for comment and were sent the following statement:
“As a sideshow to distract from the fact that his clients attacked our employees and were arrested, the Texas lawyer has now dredged up a false allegation of racial discrimination from six years ago that a judge actually threw out because there was no evidence to support the fabrication.
“Over 90 percent of our employees at the restaurant are people of color. All of our restaurant managers are people of color. All of our hosts on the day of the attack were people of color.
“We are incredibly grateful for the fortitude of our employees and the support of our customers. We have been a community restaurant for 31 years, and our community is being there for us. We’ll forever remember and honor that.”
Carmine’s also reiterated that video footage of the recent incident includes a post-fight dialogue between one of the women from Texas and a Carmine’s staff member, during which no mention of a racial slur can be heard.
What exactly does this have to do with what happened the other evening, 6 years later! Sounds like the attorney is grasping at straws…
The attorney is misrepresenting what the Times reported about this incident. At the root of it is that two men who wanted to join his defendants’ in the restaurant did not have proof of vaccination. Businesses should be strict about enforcement. Tourists should comply at all times. Areas of the country that don’t have sensible public health measures and/or enforcement of those measures are seeing their local hospitals strained beyond the breaking point with COVID patients and having to turn other patients away. This is not a game.
Watch the end of the video footage. You see the Carmine’s Manager asking the Texas women, “What happened?” and one of them replies, “She (the hostess) needs to be fired. She keeps walking up on her. When we walked in she (the hostess) keeps walking up on her.” If in fact the hostess had said a racial epithet, why didn’t the Texas woman say so? That would be the first thing to complain to the manager. Yes, we need to be sensitive to the racial implications here, but then that also should include the fact the hostess was Asian, and the reality that Asians are often bullied and more readily attacked. The post-fight dialogue here makes it clear that the Texas women’s violent attack on the hostess was NOT because of a racial epithet. And for the lawyer to bring up a case from 6 years ago is of course not relevant to this case at all.
Racial justice or money? I choose money.
I’ve been a guest at Carmines or have walked by the restaurant for 20 years. Every size shape and color happily work and dine at the restaurant . I suggest the difference between these guests is their lack of manners.
Half Asian here – the hostess was Asian. We are also a minority and are subject to violence and bullying. There was even an NYC TASK FORCE and HOT LINE created to deal with this violence which came into the spotlight year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Trump encouraging it. I keenly know as I have been the victim of several verbal threats (something that hadn’t occurred since my children where I was both threatened and battered) and now carry mace because of it. What is deeply disappointing to me are a few things – that the defense attorney is throwing smoke screens condoning a possible racial slur as an excuse for assault and battery and that the perpetrators were African American. I am all for racial justice. I have participated in protests for my African American brothers and sisters, donated, even have an arts organization devoted to inclusive casting, representation and philanthropy. That stated it just infuriates me when the race card is pulled for BS behavior! It just goes to show that non complying, non masked, non vaxxed, selfish, “freedom” crying, violent rugged individuals come in all shapes, sizes and ethnicities. I can only project positive intents that this pandemic ends soon. It’s just making people plain nuts.
The only kind of lawyer that would involve himself in a case like this – one not interested in facts, has his own agenda, looking for his name in headlines and print media, incendiary, divisive, quick to pull out the race card.
If that’s all the defense attorney has for a strategy, that woman may want to retain different counsel.
Even if this prior incident occurred, and the attorney is accurately representing it (a BIG “if”), it has ZERO, nada, zilch, nil, nothing to do with the recent incident. This is a lawyer grasping at straws because there is nothing else to grasp.
As for the recent incident, I will again point out three things.
First, from the time the women came out of the restaurant to the time one of them basically “bear-hug” tackled the hostess was mere seconds – far too little time for the hostess to have incited the women with a racial slur.
Second, the hostesses two co-hostesses are both women of color. The colleague who steps in to defuse the situation is a man of color. Over 50% of Carmine’s staff is people of color. Over 50% of Carmine’s clientele are people of color. And we are supposed to believe that, given all this, this one hostess would use a racial slur? REALLY?!?!?!
Finally, I have gone through Carmine’s interview and assessment process, and I can tell you it is rigorous. The idea that a person who would use a racial slur would somehow “get by” them and get hired is absurd.
This is about money. Period. And “playing the race card” is simply (and sadly) part of that.
So what.
why would atty plead the case in the media?