Famous Publicist Rammed Queue
With Father's SUV
Late at night on July 4 last year, a famous New York City public relations executive rammed her fathers new SUV into a crowd of people outside the Long Island nightclub Conscience Point in Manhattan.
Because Elizabeth Grubman had illegally parked in the fire lane, one of the bouncers minutes earlier had asked her to move that car. Instead of just driving forwards to another place, she yelled at the man and called him "white trash." Then she backed into 16 queuing people, who were seriously injured.
Some were stuck between the car and the wall while others were just knocked down. The injuries range from a broken ankle to head injuries. None of them was life threatening, but each one of the injured people has sued her for several million dollars.
Some witnesses say that she acted in anger. The public relations executive withholds, though, that it was not on purpose. "I'm really sorry about all the people that were hurt," she said. "This was an accident. I did not intentionally leave the scene of the accident nor did I intentionally try to hurt anybody."
During the sudden chaos outside the club, Grubman suddenly disappeared. Someone has claimed that the young woman was driving drunk and intoxicated with drugs, and that this could be an explanation to her behavior. According to her spokesman two friends escorted her away in another car when they saw that she was feeling distressed.
Later she turned herself in to the police, and a few days later, she was released on $25,000 bail. She is accused for illegally leaving the scene of an accident involving serious injury. The charges also include multiple counts of assault and reckless endangerment, and she could, if found guilty, face as much as 8 1/3 years in prison.
When she wanted to work with public relations, her father, who is a well-known entertainment lawyer, not only helped her with money, he also shared some of his clients with her. Soon she founded her own PR company. Among her clients have been pop sensation Britney Spears and rappers Jay-Z and Wu-Tang Clan.
Her father, who is the senior partner in a renowned law firm in New York where her former husband is an associate, states that he has 48 of the 50 most prominent names in that business. His wife and daughter's mother managed singers and bands before and after they met. She underwent surgery for ovarian cancer only some days after her daughters wreck with the Mercedes-Benz SUV. She also suffered from multiple sclerosis since the 1970's, and she eventually died on August 1, 2001.
©Torgny Lilja (2002)