A new New Yorker got the scare of her life when she was attacked outside Nobu Downtown by a man who slashed her for no apparent reason.
“I just recently moved here to New York with my husband,” Tova Rachel Gold, 28, told the Daily News Monday. “I was getting acclimated to New York life.”
The waitress’ alleged attacker, Mark Hunter, 43, was busted a few minutes after Gold was slashed on her right shoulder outside the lower Broadway Japanese restaurant about 8:05 p.m. Friday
Hunter, who lives in Bushwick and has no previous arrest record, was charged with assault and weapons possession. He was arraigned and made bail. His lawyer had no comment.
“It’s a little stressful,” said Gold, a transplanted Houston resident. “I’m very happy that they caught him.”
Gold had just finished her shift and was outside the restaurant, talking to her husband on the phone, when the suspect approached.
“Don’t move,” she remembered Hunter saying.
But it was too late – Gold felt pain and realized she was bleeding from a six-inch gash.
She said she fought Hunter off, but he shoved her and took off.
“I fell to the ground and he just casually walked away, which I thought was a little bit weird,” she said.
“Who knows what would’ve happened if I hadn’t pushed him off…This guy clearly wasn’t right in his mind.”
Gold was treated at Downtown Hospital, where doctors needed 14 stitches to close the wound, which was still sore Monday.
“I’m happy to be alive,” she said. “It could have been much worse.”
