A New York City jury convicted Bayna Lekheim El-Amin in a May 2015 attack on two gay men at Chelsea's Dallas BBQ.
El-Amin was convicted on all but one assault count for bashing Ethan Adams and Jonathan Snipes with a wooden chair on May 15, 2015. He was convicted of two counts of first-degree attempted assault and two counts of second-degree assault.
The scuffle happened after Snipes said he heard someone in El-Amin's direction calling him and Adams "fts." Video shows El-Aminwho said he was acting out of self-defensestomping on Snipes's head and later throwing a wooden chair on top of the pair, knocking out Adams.
In an article by writer Waddie Grant of The G-List Society, El-Amin contended that he was being attacked, saying, "We noticed a disturbance some distance away from us. Two men [Snipes and his companion] were standing over their table fighting each other, and the fight threatened to spill over to the table of ladies that were closest to them.
"Moments later, it appeared that Mr. Snipes was going to leave the restaurant. But, by standing at the door, he directed his attention toward me, walked towards me and said, 'And YOU calling us ladies!' And, he struck me. He struck me in the head with an object. I'm not sure what it was, but it felt like a heavy blunt objectand it hurt."
On June 14, El-Amin is slated to be sentenced by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Arlene Goldberg. He faces up to 15 years in jail on the top count.
The New York Daily News item is at www.nydailynews.com .The G-List article is at www.glistsociety.com .