NEW YORK (1010 WINS/WCBS 880) — An East Village couple was brutally beaten earlier this month by four men who claimed to be energy company workers, and the victim said that they were all released without bail following their detainment.
At about 2:06 p.m. on March 5, Wayne Rada and his husband Rey Rosa were at their apartment located near East 4th Street and Essex Street when a group of men knocked on their door and claimed to be with Brown’s Energy, an electric company on Staten Island.
Rada, 52, told 1010 WINS/WCBS 880’s Mack Rosenberg that the men were wearing ID tags and had binders labeled with the Brown’s Energy name, but knew something was off.
According to Rada, the beating began in a matter of two or three minutes, after he and Rosa, 36, attempted to bring the fake workers to their building’s management office.
Rosa began recording the interaction, at which point one of the men slapped Rosa’s phone from his hand “And literally choked Ray and picked him up by his throat. The other guys were over, coming from this way, and knocked me down,” Rada said.
The men that attacked Rada then began to pound his head into the ground, he said.
“The whole thing, Mack, was just like grabbing my head and slamming my head on the concrete over and over, that’s why this is all still yellow and purple," Rada told Rosenberg.
Police confirmed that Rada was transported to NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue for treatment.
As a result of the brutal attack, Rada suffered a concussion, fracture under his eye and had several teeth knocked out. While he is healing physically, the trauma from the incident lingers.
“It becomes more traumatic as the days go by,” Rada said. “To have yourself be beaten up, and to feel completely helpless, like I thought Ray was going to die, I thought they were going to choke him out, he was going to die.”
The couple was able to escape the attack and the police were called.
A spokesperson for the NYPD confirmed that there is a report on file for assault and strangulation in this incident, and that four people were arrested and charged.
The report lacks additional details regarding the circumstances of the attack, including information about the energy company scam.
According to police, Estaban Nunez, 28, was charged with two counts of assault, disorderly conduct and strangulation. Ameer Alonzo, 32, was hit with the same charges.
Daniel Espina, 32, was charged the same as Nunez and Alonzo, but caught an additional criminal mischief charge.
Sambou Macalou, 21, was charged with assault and disorderly conduct, the only defendant not accused of strangulation.
Nunez and Macalou are both from Manhattan, while Alonzo and Espina are both from the Bronx, police said.
All four of the arrestees were released with no bail.
“If somebody is beating down on people in their own home, that deserves a little time in jail, like out of the box, at least overnight,” Rada said.
The defendants are expected back in court on April 16 or 17, records show.