Sketchy Bar Claims Tape Shows "90% Chance" Employee Didn't Rape Customer
A 25-year-old woman says she was drugged and raped at Lower East Side bar Happy Ending last Tuesday night by an employee who has since been fired. After spending 10 hours dealing with NYPD officers who, she says, kept suggesting she had “led him to believe it was okay,” she suffered additional indignity at the hands of Happy Ending itself: a spokesperson for the bar claimed CCTV showed “a 90 percent chance it was consensual behavior.”
“Happy Ending takes these allegations very seriously and the employee in question was fired immediately that evening when management was made aware of the situation,” a spokesman for the bar, Will Davis, told Gothamist in an email. “We will not comment any further so as to respect the privacy of the alleged victim and not hinder the police investigation. We have fully cooperated with the authorities.”
But after Gothamist’s story was published on Monday, an unnamed rep for the bar made this odious statement to the New York Post’s Page Six:
The CCTV tapes show clearly that the alleged victim was seen kissing at the bar with the employee and was seen entering the bathroom of her own free will. It shows a 90 percent chance it was consensual behavior.
The rep didn’t explain the amazing innovation of science or magic that can reliably determine from a video whether a woman wants to have sex or not, and do so accurately enough to assign a percentage likelihood to her state of mind.
By way of comparison, this is how the woman, Pepper Ellett, remembers what happened:
“I just saw this dick in my face and I heard a man tell me to suck his dick. And then I said no and I remember feeling trapped and I remember feeling like I was being held against my will, and then I don’t remember anything after that.”
Still in damage control mode, Happy Ending has fired Nadine Johnson, the rep who made the “90 percent” comment to the Post. One of the bar’s owners, Max Levai, confirmed to Gothamist that the bar had dumped Johnson’s PR firm.
That’s just scratching the surface of the disorder in Happy Ending’s house, though. Gothamist notes that just a couple of months ago, “Happy Ending’s manager Teddy Perweiler, was arrested for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Julia Fox, in the bar. Perweiler, who runs the club with [co-owners Oliver] Stumm and Max Levai, later took an ACD in the case.”
Fox told Gothamist that Happy Ending’s “misogynist” co-owners declined to improve security after what happened to her in May, and “that’s why this happened again.”
Levai told Gothamist that Happy Ending is fighting other allegations, as well, unrelated to Ellett’s alleged rape by an employee:
“Certain third parties are attempting to use those very serious allegations as part of a broader scheme to extort money from the establishment and others in connection with an entirely separate dispute that does not involve either the complainant or the accused,” he said. “Our attorneys are conducting their own inquiry into these matters, and will pursue all appropriate legal action.”
None of this sounds like it will end happily.
