The celebrity jeweler, who provided the jewelry for the movie Uncut Gems starring Adam Sandler, shot at two black men to chase them out of his neighborhood in Queens, New York.
Yosef Aranbayev, 41, who also goes by the name Joe Avianne, was a “vigilante hell-bent” on chasing two black men out of his neighborhood Saturday night, prosecutors say.
According to the New York Daily News, Aranbayev was in his Dodge Durango when he fired one shot at the two men who were in another car. Prosecutors say he followed the men in their car, pulled out his gun and fired at them before he was pulled over.
Aranbayev was charged with attempted murder as a hate crime and held on a $50,000 bond or $25,000 cash bail.
“I was chasing those guys… We’re chasing them out of our neighborhood,” Aranbayev told the cops after he was stopped, prosecutors said. “I wasn’t shooting to kill them – just shooting to scare them.”
His neighbors and a relative came to his defense and said that Aranbayev was only protecting his family from the men who were lurking around his neighborhood and came knocking.
They also said he had been on high alert after his jewelry store, Avianne & Co., in Midtown Manhattan, was robbed last year. His celebrity clientele includes Nicki Minaj, Pete Davidson, and Justin Bieber.
“Those guys were in my neighborhood. I’m sorry, officer, I didn’t do nothing wrong. They were scouting my whole neighborhood the whole day,” Aranbayev said, according to a criminal complaint. He told the cops he fired his gun, and it “100% hit their car,” the Daily News reports.
“Hate crime? His wife is black,” his sister-in-law told the Daily News. “They have four kids and have been together for over 20 years.”
“He’s a jeweler, his clients are black!” she said. “What they’re saying, it’s just nonsense. There were two cars. There was two black guys, and there was another car with an Israeli gangster. He didn’t know what they had in that car.”
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