Three security guards at a Midtown migrant shelter are suing Tim Pearson, a top mayoral advisor who recently stepped down, for allegedly attacking them after they asked for his ID at the shelter’s entrance.
“B—-, do you know who I am?” Pearson said to a guard before grabbing her neck and shoving her into a counter, according to the suit, filed Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court. The complaint also names the city, the NYPD and other defendants.
The suit alleges the three Arrow Security employees, Terrence Rosenthal, Leesha Bell and Angelica Weldon, approached Pearson and NYPD Detective Joseph Raffaelle last October, asking them for identification as they attempted to enter the 31st St. shelter.
Pearson then attacked Bell, cursing at her and gripping her neck, according to the complaint. He then lunged at Weldon, pushing her into a wall and onto the floor, and then with Raffaelle, Vitucci and another NYPD officer, threw Rosenthal to the ground.
Former NYPD Inspector Timothy Pearson, left, is a longtime adviser to Mayor Eric Adams. (NYPD; Luiz Ribeiro for New York Daily News)
“The City of New York and Mayor Eric Adams knew Timothy Pearson was not qualified to serve in his administration and despite continued substantiated allegations of misconduct and knowing he posed a risk to the safety of others, they continued his employment and unnecessarily endangered the public,” Jason Steinberger, attorney for all three guards, said in a statement.
Differing reports emerged after the October 2023 incident — with police sources telling the Daily News the guards decided to “exceed their authority” and that Pearson was the one shoved by them. Pearson, who was conducting a quality assurance spot inspection, was wearing a jacket that identified him as a senior advisor to the mayor and was accompanied by uniformed NYPD officers.
Pearson was not charged. Both Bell and Rosenthal were arrested and held at a police precinct the day of the incident. Their charges were eventually dropped by the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
The suit is seeking monetary damages and attorney’s fees for physical and emotional abuse, false arrest and imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
The Law Department is bankrolling Pearson in several sexual harassment lawsuits. John Flannery, who represents Pearson in those suits, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment, nor did Hugh Mo, Pearson’s criminal lawyer. Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city’s Law Department, declined to comment.
After allegedly getting into a fight with a group of security guards inside a Manhattan migrant shelter last year, Tim Pearson, a top public safety adviser to Mayor Adams, was confronted by one of them outside the facility even as NYPD officers arrived to diffuse the situation, surveillance footage obtained by the Daily News shows. (Obtained by Daily News)
The lawsuit says the guards didn’t subject Pearson to any physical contact.
Pearson resigned from Adams’ administration last week after the mayor was indicted in a federal investigation on charges he accepted and solicited bribes from the Turkish government.
The former aide is caught up in a separate federal corruption probe as one of multiple top aides to the mayor who had their homes raided and electronics seized by federal investigators in September as part of several ongoing corruption probes.
Molly Shaeffer, who worked closely with Pearson managing the city’s migrant services contracts as the city’s director of the Office of Asylum Seekers, was subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury last month.
With Graham Rayman and Molly Crane-Newman