Jonathan Kaye, the banker who was filmed punching a woman in the face amid a Pride celebration in Brooklyn this month, has left Moelis, a spokesperson for the bank confirmed Monday.
A page listing Kaye’s biography has been removed from Moelis’s website as of Monday. A managing director, Kaye had led Moelis’s business services franchise.
Moelis tapped Rick Polhemus to run its U.S. business services in Kaye’s stead, a person familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. Polhemus will work with colleagues in Europe on international matters, the source added.
Kaye had been placed on leave June 10, the first weekday after a 10-second video surfaced showing the banker knocking a woman to the ground, then walking away as onlookers call him “an a--hole” and “a horrible person.” In the video, Kaye turns to the onlookers and tells them, “She f---ing threw s--- all over me” and walks away carrying a plastic bag, with a wet substance clearly visible across the back of his blazer.
Accounts of the June 8 incident differ, however.
A source close to Kaye told the New York Post the banker was surrounded by a group — accounts range between four and six people — protesting Israel’s military action in Gaza. The source said the group shouted slurs at Kaye before he was doused with a red and white liquid.
Kaye was “in fear for his physical safety when he was surrounded by an angry mob of agitators who encircled him, physically assaulted him and threw unknown liquids on him,” a spokesperson for the banker said in a statement, according to a Monday report in the Financial Times.
“Given the sharp rise in antisemitic incidents, any Jewish person in this situation would naturally feel threatened and feel the need to defend themselves and return safely to their family,” the spokesperson said, according to Bloomberg.
“They were marching, they had a flag, and Jonathan simply said something along the lines of, ‘You guys are on the wrong side,’” the source told the Post. “He tried to back away, but he was either chest-bumped or fell to the ground, smashing his knee and slicing his leg.”
The source said Kaye then got up and used only the amount of force that was necessary “to get out of there.”
A woman who told New York City’s NBC4 she was the recipient of Kaye’s filmed punch said June 11 that Kaye instigated the attack.
“There was nothing — no slurs were said whatsoever,” the woman, identified only as Micah P., told the outlet. “He was literally a tornado of violence.”
When Micah saw Kaye walk by, she said she and her friends acknowledged among themselves, “Don’t engage with that guy. He seems drunk or unhinged or something – like, he seemed very angry when he walked by.”
Micah said the incident began when Kaye called the group a “bunch of useful idiots.”
“He got about halfway down the block and I turned around and I said, ‘What did you say?’” Micah told NBC4. “He turned back around and just started rushing us.”
Micah told NBC4 she splashed Kaye with water from a bottle she was holding to prompt him to get away.
Kaye then pushed multiple people in her group and injured himself, Micah alleged.
“One of our other friends was like, ‘Get off of them!’ He jumps up, runs after that person, grabs their vest, they slipped out of their vest to get away from him and he fell face first on the concrete, scraping his ankle,” Micah told NBC4.
“One of the people he shoved was like, ‘Are you OK?’ He jumps up, shoves another person, shoves my friend onto the ground, they hurt their arm,” Micah continued. “And then he turns to me, and that’s when the video kicks in. You can see him just clock me.”
NBC4 said, as of the interview’s air date, June 11, Micah had not planned to file a police report.
“I want him to be a better person after this, I want him to take anger management. I want him to get therapy,” she said. “I want him to not be in a position of power until he’s able to be a better member of the community.”
The New York Police Department confirmed to Bloomberg a report was filed June 12 by a 38-year-old woman indicating that the punch caused a broken nose, lacerations and a black eye, and that she lost consciousness when she fell to the ground.
A spokesperson for the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office told the New York Post on Monday that a criminal investigation into the incident is ongoing.
The spokesperson for Kaye said the banker plans to “fully cooperate with authorities to resolve this matter and clear his name,” according to the Financial Times.
“The aftermath to Mr. Kaye, which has included countless death threats and a campaign of personal destruction, has been traumatic and devastating,” the spokesperson told Bloomberg.
“Mr. Kaye has lived peacefully in New York City for a quarter of a century with no history of physical altercation,” the spokesperson told the Financial Times. “His mistake was the presumption of non-violent discourse.”
