Shohel Mahmud had no obvious reason to worry when he picked up two young women who had ordered an Uber around midnight on July 31.
After they got into his car on the West Side of Manhattan, he confirmed that one of them was Jennifer Guilbeault, the person who had ordered the ride, and then drove off toward the two East Side stops the women had chosen.
The ride was unremarkable as the car traveled uptown and across Central Park, Mr. Mahmud said. The women chatted and looked at their phones. They and Mr. Mahmud did not speak, he said. “They were talking and chilling,” he said on Monday. “Why would I interrupt?”
The mood changed when he stopped at a traffic light at 65th Street and Lexington Avenue, he and prosecutors said. After he began to pray quietly in Arabic while waiting for the light to turn green, Ms. Guilbeault lunged at him, grabbed him and doused his face with pepper spray.
Moments later, when Ms. Guilbeault was standing outside the car, her friend asked why she had done what she did. “He’s brown,” Ms. Guilbeault replied, according to a police officer’s statement in a court document that cites surveillance footage.
On Monday, Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, said that Ms. Guilbeault, 23, had been indicted on several counts, including second- and third-degree assault as a hate crime.
“The victim is a hardworking New Yorker who should not have to face this type of hate because of his identity,” Mr. Bragg said in a statement. “Everyone is welcome to live and work in Manhattan.”
Ms. Guilbeault, a Manhattan resident, pleaded not guilty in State Supreme Court in Manhattan on Monday. She was released and is scheduled to return to court in January. Her lawyer, Michael J. Alber, did not respond to a call seeking comment.
When the attack began, Mr. Mahmud said, he briefly thought his passengers might have been trying to hijack the car.
“I totally freaked out,” he said.
Mr. Mahmud tried to get out of the car, but quickly realized that he was still belted in and that the car, still in drive, was starting to drift into traffic. So he climbed back in to put the car into park.
At that point, the footage shows, Ms. Guilbeault renewed her attack, her face twisted with anger as she grabbed him violently and wrenched his arm while trying to pepper-spray him again. Her friend looked on, horrified, her hand covering her mouth.
Mr. Mahmud’s shoulder, neck and back were injured in the assault, and the vision in his right eye was impaired for a time, he said. He returned to driving in late September after missing about two months of work.
Mr. Mahmud, 45, said it was the first time he had been attacked since he began driving for ride-share apps in the city in 2017. He recalled asking Ms. Guilbeault why she was attacking him and getting no response.
“When I saw the video,” he said, “I understood.”
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