Sean Avery was in the witness stand defending himself on Thursday when he said he wasn’t sure he was wrong in the encounter that ended with his electric motorcycle lying in the van of a family in Manhattan.
“I’m not a police officer,” said Avery, a former New York Rangers hockey player. “So I really don’t know if any crimes were committed. It’s part of the action on the streets of New York City. “
But just hours after Mr. Avery finished testifying, a judge made it clear: There was a crime committed and he was guilty.
Thus ended the very unusual case of Mr. Avery, who was found guilty of willful felony, a misdemeanor that rarely leads to trial and could have been settled with a fine of a little more than $1,000. three years ago.
But Mr Avery, who, after leaving the National Hockey League in 2012 as a model and Vogue intern and now works as an actor, refused in principle to accept a deal. plea agreement issued by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
“I’m an idiot for saying no,” he said a week before auditioning on a podcast he hosted. But he added that it was a matter of personal values. “I don’t just go to school,” he said.
After representing himself in April on his last court appearance – that didn’t go well – Mr. Avery has hired an attorney, Jason Goldman, to represent him in a two-day trial this week. Mr. Goldman went to great lengths to cast doubt on the story told by Jonathan Schulhof, 48, Manhattan’s father and managing partner of Footprint Coalition Ventures, a sustainable investment firm.
Mr Schulhof was driving the family to lunch in his wife’s van on February 23, 2019, when Mr Avery, appeared angry at being interrupted as Mr Schulhof turned left onto East Eighth Street from Broadway , intentionally hitting the side of the vehicle. The impact happened right where Schulhof’s young daughter was sitting.
Mr Goldman insists that because Mr Schulhof hadn’t personally witnessed the attack – only heard it, felt it shake the truck and saw Mr Avery pry his throttle – he was lying about having “observed” it.
“You watched it with your ears,” he said Wednesday.
Mr. Goldman and Mr. Avery present an alternative story – that the former hockey player lost control, accidentally crashing into the car.
The judge, Marisol Martinez-Alonso was not convinced. She demanded that Mr Avery pay a $205 surcharge and not contact Mr Schulhof or his family for three years. Mr. Goldman later said that he and Mr. Avery were disappointed, but grateful for that, and added, “Sean can now go on, without restraint, with his personal and professional efforts. me.”
Mr. Avery tried to turn the trial into a media event, using his podcast, “No Gruffs Given,” to urge New York Rangers fans to pack up the courtroom.
But on the podcast, he correctly predicted that Rangers would lose the recent convention series finale to the Tampa Bay Lightning, and during the test, only two viewers were identified as fans. One was wearing a Rangers hat, the other was wearing Mr. Avery’s number 16 jersey.
Mr Avery credited the fan support with the shirt all day long – who did not give his name but said he was a 36-year-old from upstate New York who drove down to backing the man he calls “a hockey player bastard” – casting glances at him whenever there is a break in action.
On the second day of the trial, when no identifiable fan showed up to watch him testify, Mr Avery grabbed a bottle of Gatorade lemonade as if he were in the middle of a game. tough. He taunted reporters and photographers, covering his face with a stack of photos of evidence as a cameraman tried his luck, asking, “Did you take it?”
Mr. Avery seemed more comfortable answering questions from Mr. Goldman. He said he had accidentally hit Mr Schulhof’s pickup truck when he was trying to make an abrupt stop after being cut off. He admitted to losing his temper and insulting his family.
“I definitely made a comment to the driver about his wife doing his dirty work and keeping her under control,” he said. “And then I think I made the comment about him being bald.”
But he said he did nothing wrong. “I’m a rule taker,” said Avery, whose behavior in the NHL directly resulted ban on players waving their hockey sticks in front of goalkeepers.
He is less visible during the cross-examination, in which he keeps Gatorade nearby in the witness stand. The prosecutor, Sarah Doelger of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, asked him how much he was pressed (he said he hadn’t been pressed to the bench in years), asking him to He restated his testimony from a few minutes earlier (he wouldn’t), and asked if he’d noticed the puncture the scooter had made in the victim’s vehicle.
“I don’t believe so, no,” Mr. Avery said.
Upon hearing the verdict, Mr. Avery put on a pair of sunglasses and sat at the defense desk for another half hour while the protective order was issued. He then stood up and strode out of the courtroom, speaking only to Mr. Goldman, ignoring reporters’ questions and keeping a wide smile on his face until he was out of sight.
