The story of the imam attacked on the A train earlier this week has gotten a new twist: one of the men accused of administering the beating, Eddie Crespo, is an MTA B&T officer.
The scuffle allegedly occurred after Albert Melendez, the brother of Crespo's fiance, announced to Rod Peterson, an imam from Queens, that he didn't "like Muslims." He is then said to have assaulted him on the train before the duo chased him onto the Canal Street platform. Once there Crespo is said to have held Peterson down while Melendez hit him. At some point the imam's kufi was thrown into the tracks. The slurs used, along with the kufi on the tracks, led the pair to be charged with robbery and assault as hate crimes.
Lawyers for both men claimed this was all a misunderstanding and that the clash occured after a bump on the subway. "This was certainly not a racially motivated attack. Judge, these are trumped-up charges," Melendez's lawyer, Angel Soto, said at his client's arraignment. Meanwhile Crespo's lawyer, Arnold Keith, says that Crespo actions are being misunderstood: he tried to break up the fight, never saw the kufi and stuck around to help the imam.
Both men are currently being held on bail and Crespo has been suspended without pay. Also? Getting bumped into on the subway is still no excuse to give a guy a black eye.
