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Victim Pointed Out Wrong Person in Harlem 'Hate Crime' Beating, Sources Say

By  Janon Fisher and Murray Weiss | February 26, 2015 3:25pm 

 Michelle Berrio, 43, was wrongly accused of attacking a white woman in Sugar Hill.
Michelle Berrio, 43, was wrongly accused of attacking a white woman in Sugar Hill.
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DNAinfo

HARLEM — A woman who told police she was beaten by an attacker yelling anti-white slurs near a Sugar Hill subway station Thursday pointed out the wrong woman as her assailant, sources said.

The victim, who is white, approached NYPD officers Wednesday morning and claimed she bumped into a fellow commuter as she was leaving the 145th Street subway station near St. Nicholas, when the woman grabbed her by the hair and bashed her head into a lamppost.

The victim told police the assailant — who she lost sight of after the attack —made anti-white statements while she beat her, police said.

Officers put the victim into the back of their police car and drove her around near the station in search of the attacker, sources said.

She pointed out a woman walking down the sidewalk — who turned out to be a Department of Social Services employee. The city staffer was arrested, publicly identified and charged with two counts of assault as a hate crime. The woman denied the attack to police.

Officers later located subway surveillance footage that proved the woman was not the attacker, prompting them to release her on Thursday and drop the charges, sources said.

Investigators have used the video to zero in on another suspect who has yet to be caught.

Neither the victim or the city employee could be reached for comment.