A black deliveryman who was given a noose as gift from the owner or Ottomanelli & Sons Meat Market says the incident traumatized him and and he cannot return to work. So his boss fired him.
According to NY Daily News Victor Sheppard says he was not comfortable returning to his job with Hunts Point meat distributor Mosner Family Brands because it continued to serve the butcher that gave him the noose.
Joe Ottomanelli passed Sheppard a hand-fashioned noose at the butcher shop on April 5 during a morning meat delivery.
“Here is your gift. You can put it around your neck and pull if you want to end it all,” Ottomanelli, 58, said, according to a criminal complaint.
“If you are feeling stressed out I can help you with it.”
Ottomanelli has been charged with a hate crime. His attorney, Ron Kuby, says there was no malice attached to the bad “joke” and that Sheppard’s complaint is just an attempt to make money off of the incident through a lawsuit.
Sheppard’s boss, Michael Mosner, says he was horrified by the incident and would have assigned him a different route had he shown up for work but after failing to return on two occasions, they had to let him go since they “had no alternative.”
Ottomanelli is due in Manhattan Criminal Court on Sept. 19.
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