NYC McDonald’s stabbing suspect sobs as judge sets $150K bail
The man accused of repeatedly stabbing an East Harlem McDonald’s worker sobbed into his lawyer’s shoulder during his first court appearance Wednesday — where a judge set his bail at $150,000.
Ezekiel Dunn-Jennings, 28, sniffled and shook his head during the brief hearing in Manhattan Criminal Court, as an attorney w♑ith Neighborhood Defender Services of Harlem pattedꦐ him on the back.
Dunn-Jen🍃nings, who had his hands cuffed behind his back and a large bandage around his pinky finger, is charged with attempted murder, assault and weapons possession in the grisly March 9 attack.
Prosecutors say Dunn-Jennings went berserk inside the fast-food joint on Third Avenue near East 117th Street at around 12:40 a.m. — stabbing Mickey D’s worker Angel Miguel Salazar at least seven times.
Dunn-Jennings got into an argument with staffers at the restaurant and started “cursing” and “threatening to punch and kill” them, Assistant District Attorney Ashley Maldonado De La Fuente said during the arraignment.
He then taunted Salazar to come out of the kitchen and hit him — and the 23-year-old hero emerged with a bro🎐omstick to defend his co-workers.
The two came to blows, and Dunn-Jennings alleg𝄹edly repeatedly knifed Salazar, who is💜 still hospitalized.
“He has to pay for what he did,” Salazar told The Post by phone from his hospital bed on Tuesday, after Dunn-Jennings turned himself in.
One of Dunn-Jennings’ attorneys, Lisa Freedman, noted that her client had surrendered to authorities as she asked Judge Anna Lewis to free him on supervised release.
Friedman argued that Dunn-Jennings doesn’t have a “substantial criminal record” and that he “always comes to court.”
Dunn-Jennings — who has 🐼four prior arrests, for assault, criminal mischief and menacing — cried ♛as another attorney, Matthew Daloisio, tried to comfort him.
The ADA said that a “large portion of the crime” was captured on surveillance video and that bloody pants were found in the suspect’s apartment — less than three blocks from the McDonald’s — as she asked for $150,000 bail.
Dunn-Jennings had claimed he acted in self-defense as he was walked out of the 25th Precinct late Tuesday mornin🍃g, saying, “I was hit 🧜in the head. I was attacked first.”
“I’m sorry what happened to that man,” he added when asked if he regretted his allege𓆏d actions. “He was a handsome man. I didn’t me💙an to hurt him.”
