Grunt and Center: Victim Says Workout Shouts Led to NYC Gym Assault
Thursday, May 29, 2008
He just can't help the grunting.
Nor can he help shouting "Woo-woo!" or "Great song!" or "Good burn," or — inexplicably, "You go, girl!"
That's what a spin-class workout is all about, hedge-fund manager Stuart Sugarman testified yesterday, taking the stand as the victim in the bizarre case of a New York City gym assault.
"These are words that would get me charged up and really come out automatically," Sugarman, 48, told a jury, describing the prologue to a brutal spin-class smackdown that jangled his vertebrae and landed him in the hospital for 10 days.
Manhattan prosecutors say that because of his annoying hooting and bellowing, Sugarman was brutally tipped up and off his exercise bike last summer by an irate stockbroker.
His antagonist, Christopher Carter, had been sitting two bikes down at an Equinox gym at 85th Street and Third Avenue and was ticked off by the distractions.
Carter is fighting a possible year in jail on the misdemeanor charges by arguing that Sugarman provoked the incident.
Cops testified that Sugarman admitted giving Carter the finger and cursing, and testimony by another "spinner" that when Carter shouted, "Shut up," Sugarman taunted, "Make me."
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,359623,00.html
