Video of Homeless Man's Humiliation Prompts Investigation By Prosecutor

LAKEWOOD, NJ -- The Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed it is investigating reports of a website that allegedly shows videos of Orthodox Jewish men humiliating people and sharing it on the site for others’ amusement.

Al Della Fave, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office, said investigators are trying to determine whether the purported website exists, and if it does, who the administrator is and whether the content is what has been alleged.

“We were just notified about it yesterday by Lakewood police,” Della Fave said.

Reports of the purported website came to light after an incident Monday afternoon in Lakewood, where an Orthodox man paid a homeless man to pour coffee over his head and took video of it.

The incident was witnessed by another man, Carlos Mejia, who confronted the man and then posted about the incident on Facebook, expressing his anger over the way Ron, the homeless man, was treated.

Mejia’s photos of the incident are included above. The man who approached Ron is dressed in a plain white dress shirt and dark jacket and is wearing a black yarmulke, commonly seen among members of the Orthodox community, which makes up a majority of the population in Lakewood.

Mejia’s post, which has been shared more than 2,100 times, made its way to the Lakewood Police Department.

Mejia said he was sitting in his car at the Singin gas station on Cedar Bridge Avenue near Central Avenue when he heard the man offer Ron $5.

“At first I thought it was as an act of kindness but I was wrong,” Mejia said on Facebook. “He took two coffees he had recently just bought out of his car that were very hot & told the poor man to pour it on his head. The man did as he was told. The Jew was recording this with his video camera & laughing. Then he offered some spare change if the man would pour another coffee on his head.” The homeless man, Ron, however, says in a YouTube video that the coffee was cold.

Mejia said he got out of his car and confronted the man, who Mejia said was startled and “panicked & began to apologize.”

Mejia said that‘s when the man told him about the website, which Mejia confirmed by telephone on Thursday.

“The man told me they pay money to the homeless to do this sort of thing,” Mejia said by phone, so they can post it on a website and laugh at them, he said.

Lakewood police, in a post on the department’s Facebook page, said they have investigated the incident and determined that “although the incident occurred in poor judgement, it did not rise to a criminal act.”

“Evidence in the case revealed that both parties were willing participants and no one was injured,” the post states.

Video of the incident itself has not been located, but other videos related to the incident have been posted.

In one, a member of the Jewish community named Ari searched out Ron and spoke to him about the incident, apologizing to him for the other man’s actions. Ari offers to take Ron for a haircut, a hot meal and arrange for him to have a place to stay that will give him real shelter from nor’easter predicted to bury the area under 12 inches of snow. In the YouTube video, seen below, Ron tells Ari he’s been living in a dugout off Cedar Bridge Avenue.

The man who offered Ron the money to pour the coffee on himself also has apologized, according to The Lakewood Scoop, which posted a video of the apology. 

Steve Brigham, the prominent advocate for the homeless in Monmouth and Ocean County, called the incident deplorable.

Brigham said he had only heard about the purported website in the wake of the incident with Ron, but noted that incidents where the homeless are targeted for others’ amusement are not uncommon. A homeless woman was punched in Atlantic City last fall by a man who has since been arrested and charged with assault after video of that incident surfaced on social media. And in a more serious incident in Ocean County, a group of teenagers were sent to jail after they assaulted a homeless man in Toms River in 2004 during a “bum hunting” trip into the woods.

“Something needs to be done, and more than just an apology,” Brigham said.

(Photos of the homeless man talking with the Jewish man, courtesy of Carlos Mejia)