By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Former TV reporter Vince Dementri has been acquitted of charges he attacked a chauffeur in a scuffle over a parking Midtown spot last year.
Dementri said the driver fabricated the story and lied on the witness stand to try to get money in a pending lawsuit over the alleged altercation. Dementri, 47, was acquitted by Manhattan Criminal Court Judge Abraham Clott immediately after the prosecutor's closing argument.
The former reporter was arrested on May 20, 2010. He had been trying to park his Audi quickly in Midtown to cover breaking court news following the Faisal Shahzad car bomb plot. The chauffeur was blocking a spot reserved for press, and Dementri asked him to move, according to the reporter. The chauffeur said that Dementri then attacked him over the spot, a claim the ex-WPIX-11 reporter denied.
He said he was fired by the station days after his arrest because of their strict moral code, even though he said he had done nothing wrong. He is hoping they will consider re-hiring him in light of his exoneration.
"I need a job," he said. "For 10 months I've been through hell and I didn't do anything."
"On May 18th I had my life stolen, on March 22nd, I'd like it back," Dementri added.
On the witness stand last week, Hurley Senanayake, 55, a Sri Lankin native working as a chauffeur for a Bahamanian diplomat, said Dementri shouted a racial slur at him during the fight — a claim that was never previously reported.
The chauffeur also admitted to having a debt load in the tens of thousands, with one home in foreclosure and another he said he will soon be losing. The driver also said, speaking through a translator Tuesday, that he claimed $0 in income in a recent tax return even though he was working as a driver at the time.
Dementri said he feels bad for Senanayake and has no hard feelings even though the claim that Dementri called him a "n***er" was outrageous.
"Something really bad must have happened to him in his life for him to accuse somebody of something that horrible," Dementri said. "I hope it gets better for him."
Dementri's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, said the driver was one of the biggest liars he's ever seen on the witness stand.
"It was embarrassing," said Lichtman, who grilled the driver about his allegedly made-up injuries and his disastrous financial situation.
As for Dementri, he said he would be perfectly happy if the station would reconsider their decision to release him.
"I'm hoping I can go back to my old job," a job he said he believes he "was pretty good at."
