Woman gets three years’ probation for racist diatribe at Chinatown nail salon workers
A woman convicted of unleashing a racist diatribe at Chinatown nail salon workers and even harassing the Asian NYPD officer who arrested her was sentenced to three years of probation on Thursday.
Sharon Williams, 52, must also attend an implicit bias program, anger management and alcohol and substance use disorder screening for the April 2021 stream of abuse at Good Choice for Nails salon on Madison St. near James St., a judge ruled at her Manhattan Supreme Court sentencing.
A jury convicted her of aggravated harassment and physically threatening an undercover police officer with violence.
“Chinese monkey,” Williams called the officer of Asian descent who arrested her after she told the nail technicians they had brought COVID-19 to the U.S.
“You brought coronavirus here; I’m going to punch you in the face,” she raved at the cop.
When she ridiculed the workers, Williams, a 20-year resident of Chinatown, had three open cases for assault and menacing. She declined multiple offers from prosecutors before her spring trial that would have dodged a criminal record, including submitting to a 26-week implicit bias program she has now been ordered to attend.
Assistant District Attorney Dylan Los Huertos, who had requested Williams serve a year in city jail, said she had declined to take any affirmative steps to change and continues to be violent toward vulnerable people in her neighborhood.
Prosecutors are still seeking up to three years of prison time for Williams in another case, Huertos said. She’s accused of yelling homophobic language at a woman in June 2022, the same person she’d allegedly attacked with a knife the previous month.
“I’m going to stab you. I have a knife with me,” Williams told the victim the second time she accosted them, violating an order of protection, according to court records. “I’m going to beat you up because you’re gay.”
The incident featured among a disturbing spike of hate crimes committed against Asian New Yorkers tracking with trends across the nation, supercharged by prominent public figures using racist rhetoric to describe COVID, Huertos noted in court.
The prosecutor cited nationwide data showing that between 2020 and 2021, one in five Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were the victim of a hate crime.
The Daily News could not reach Williams for comment. A message was left with her attorney Lawrence Omansky.
