New York Woman Attacked at Deli After She’s Mistaken as Transgender: Lawsuit

A New York deli was sued this week over claims of a horrific transphobic attack by an employee during a marijuana sale gone wrong.

The lawsuit alleges a Staten Island woman was pepper-sprayed, dragged by her hair, thrown into the street and kicked because the cashier reportedly thought she was transgender, according to Knewz.com.

The New York Daily News interviewed Jasmine Adams, a 35-year-old mother who manages a residence for adults with disabilities. She told the newspaper she stopped at a Staten Island grocery the night of July 28 to buy $40 worth of marijuana for a friend.

During the transaction, the cashier selling the weed became upset by a miscommunication over prices, Adams said. The employee threatened to call the cops before hurling a transphobic slur at Adams, she told the Daily News.

"‘Call the cops! I just want my money back,’" Adams recalled saying to the cashier. "Then I heard him call me a transvestite. I’m like, ‘Transvestite? I’m a whole female. I have lady parts.'”

Adams said she was wearing an Apple Watch with a rainbow-print wristband during the encounter.

After asking for her money back from the cashier, Adams said the man suddenly pepper sprayed her in the face, ran around the counter and grabbed her by her long hair.

Cellphone video obtained by the newspaper captured the moments the alleged attacker, wearing a Denver Nuggets jersey, appeared to drag Adams out of the store. Shocked bystanders watched as he pulled her down three concrete steps and threw her into the street before kicking her in the head, the video appears to show.

“Next thing I know when I opened my eyes, I was outside next to my car on the floor,” Adams told the newspaper. “I said to myself that I gotta get outta here because I don’t know if he’s going to kill me.”

Bruised and cut, Adams made it home and called 911, she told the Daily News. She said officers responded four hours later, appearing to know the attacker and referring to him as “Mr. Fourth of July.”

The New York Police Department confirmed Adams reported the incident with the same details she gave the media, according to local news station WPIX-TV and the Daily News. No arrests have been made.

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On Oct. 9 Adams' lawyer, Robert E. Brown, filed a discrimination suit in Staten Island Supreme Court against the West Brighton Deli & Grill. The suit seeks damages for negligence, assault, battery, and emotional distress, according to WPIX.

"Whatever my sexual preference is, it shouldn’t be questioned when I walk in the store,” Adams told the Daily News.