The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office stated Thursday that a Florida woman accused of pepper spraying four Asian ladies while shouting xenophobic remarks had been indicted on 12 charges of hate crimes.
According to a press statement from District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, Madeline Barker, 47, was charged with four charges of aggravated harassment in the second degree and eight counts of third-degree assault as hate crimes.
At Barker’s arraignment last month, there were five less assault counts than there are in the indictment released on Thursday. In New York, Barker is still in police custody. Her lawyer has been contacted by CSU for comment.
According to the prosecution, on June 11, Barker confronted a group of four Asian ladies who were standing on a Manhattan street and reportedly sprayed them for approaching her while she was seated.
These women reportedly heard the vile and discriminatory statements “go back to your country” before suffering the physical agony of Ms. Barker’s pepper spray, according to a statement from Bragg.
The charge follows another hate crimes indictment brought by Bragg’s office on Wednesday against a man accused of assaulting two ladies of Korean ancestry while hurling anti-Asian remarks at a Rockefeller Center subway stop.
According to a spokeswoman for the office, in the six months since Bragg took office, he has secured $1.7 million in funding to increase the hate crimes unit’s size. The office also plans to hire more investigative analysts, assistant district attorneys, and linguists to better serve its clients, she added.
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