A restaurateur who admitted he exposed himself to a woman in a subway car, an act the woman captured with her cellphone camera, was sentenced on Tuesday to two years probation and ordered to undergo counselling.
Daniel Hoyt (43), of New York, was sentenced in the Manhattan Criminal Court on his guilty plea to public lewdness, a misdemeanour. He admitted he exposed himself while on the train on August 24 2005, near the East Eighth Street station.
Hoyt and Tolentin Chan founded the popular Quintessence raw-food restaurants on East 10th Street in the East Village and on Amsterdam Avenue on the Upper West Side.
Judge Alexander Jeong rejected a request by assistant district attorney Andrew Zakrocki to follow a probation department recommendation and send Hoyt to jail.
”I will impose the sentence promised,” Jeong said. He added that Hoyt has to continue once-weekly psychiatric counselling for the entire two-year probation period. The judge warned that a probation violation could get Hoyt 90 days in jail.
As Hoyt left court, he said: ”I apologise for my actions and I’m sorry for anyone I may have offended.”
A court complaint says Hoyt committed four similar acts of public lewdness on the New York subway.
While Hoyt was in court, about a half-dozen women marched with signs outside the courthouse, denouncing the defendant. Their demonstration was in response to his alleged comments in a magazine interview, that some women liked what he had been doing and probably would want to date him.
One marcher was Thao Nguyen (23), the woman who caught Hoyt ”in flagrante” with her cellphone camera. She carried a sign that said: ”Actually, if I met you in a bar I wouldn’t date you.” – Sapa-AP