One of the two social media trolls accused of trying to set a Black woman’s boot on fire during a clash on a Manhattan street filled with racist insults claimed Friday he had no memory of the crime — even though he recorded the entire thing.
“I don’t remember the incident,” Michael Santiago, 31, told the Daily News in Manhattan Criminal Court after he was arraigned on a slew of hate crime charges, including attempted assault, criminal mischief and menacing. “I’m not denying I was there, but I don’t remember the incident.”
Santiago is accused of filming his friend Michael James torch a 54-year-old woman’s furry boot during a hate-fueled tirade on W. 26th St. and Seventh Ave. in Chelsea on Feb. 19, then posting the video online.
Santiago and James — the latter who walks around the city proudly sporting a red “Make America Great Again” hat — are known online as “ScrubsNYC.” The pair of social media provocateurs post their bizarre arguments and interactions with everyday New Yorkers, which usually end with them being chased down the street and out of bodegas and residential buildings.
Prosecutors said that Santiago recorded James, 33, approaching and trying to kiss the victim. When she rebuffed him, he launched into a racist rant, prosecutors said.
“(James) was streaming his actions on live video on the Internet while (he) stated to the complainant, a Black woman, ‘If you were a slave, you would kiss me. If you were a slave, you would suck my d—,’” Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Bixler said during Friday’s arraignment.
In the video posted online their victim pulls out her own phone in the middle of James’ tirade and begins recording the creeps. Then she throws insults right back at them.
“You’re a slave — you’re a slave to my Blackness,” she tells James defiantly.
When James tells the woman, “Kiss me,” she replies saying she “would never,” the video shows.
At one point, James asks to kiss the victim’s boots. She agrees, but when he kneels down, he sets one of her boots on fire with a handheld blowtorch.
The hair on the toe of the woman’s boot was singed but the flames quickly petered out, prosecutors said.
“Meanwhile, (Santiago) records everything, and the incident is livestreamed, with users having the ability to comment live about the incident,” Bixler said.
Cops say the $89 pair of boots were ruined.
James and Santiago were arrested late Wednesday, a few hours after cops released images of the two men, asking the public’s help for information about the duo.
The two suspects live in the same apartment building on the Upper East Side, according to cops.
Photos of the suspects were supplied by their victim, who is still “receiving messages on social media” over the suspects’ video and “is in fear of her safety,” prosecutors said.
When cops arrested the pair, James identified himself as the man who set the woman’s boot on fire, according to court papers.
“That is me on the video. I do see myself burning the boot,” James told police, prosecutors said.
Cops also recovered an electric stun gun from Santiago’s backpack.
James was additionally arraigned on harassment and menacing charges for allegedly threatening an ex-girlfriend with a knife in a separate incident, prosecutors said.
The judge signed off on an order of protection preventing Santiago and James from going anywhere near both victims as these cases continue to wend their way through the courts.
Both men were set loose without bail and were enrolled in a supervised release program that would ensure their return to court on April 21.
This week’s arrests were the suspects’ first run-ins with the law, cops said.
In one of their online videos, Santiago boasts that James is the “biggest streamer in New York right now.” But the duo has only about 1,670 subscribers on YouTube, 1,400 followers on Kick and just 295 followers on Instagram.
