Morgan Stanley

A leading investment banker is accused of stabbing a cab driver, threatening to kill him over a fare and then bragging he wouldn't be arrested because he pays $10,000 taxes.

Police claim Morgan Stanley financier W. Bryan Jennings, 45, flew into a rage and began shouting abuse when the driver - who is of middle eastern descent - insisted he pay the $204 they had agreed on to take him from Manhattan to his multimillion-dollar Connecticut home.

According to court records, the 45-year-old screamed: 'I'm going to kill you, you should go back to your own country', before stabbing him in the hand.

Detective Cmdr Ronald Bussell of the Darien police told the New York Post: 'As he’s driving down there, the victim says, the passenger tries to stab him with a knife. He puts up his hands and gets stabbed in the hand.

'Poor guy. He had to pay the cab fare to the car’s owner because Jennings bolted.'

The 44-year-old Queens cab driver said: 'I thought I was going to die that night.' He was treated in hospital and said he had to get six stitches to his hand.

He claims Jennings - who earns $2 million a year - offered to pay him just $50 despite them agreeing the $204 before they left Manhattan

When he said he was going to go to police, the married father-of-two allegedly told him 'the cops wouldn't do anything to him because he pays $10,000 in taxes', police wrote in an arrest warrant application.

The banker later told him he'd been drinking 'throughout the day' at a charity event but didn't feel as if he was drunk.

He has been placed on a leave of absence from Morgan Stanley after being arrested on charges of assault, theft of service and intimidation with racial slurs on Wednesday.

However Jennings' lawyer Eugene Riccio claims his client had been 'kidnapped' by the cab driver who was demanding an 'exorbitant' $300 after refusing Jennings' 'reasonable' offer of $160.

Riccio said his client had been 'abducted' and that it was 'mind boggling' the driver had not been charged.

He denied that Jennings had made any racial slurs, saying: 'His arrest for these charges is absolutely wrong'.

According to Riccio the driver refused to let Jennings out of the cab and told him he was going to drive him back to New York City.

He told the Post: 'The driver had locked the doors, and by the time my client was able to get the doors unlocked, the cab was already pulling away from the home at a high rate of speed.'

He added: 'The cabby attempts to grab the knife from my client. At that point, my client is able to escape and literally runs home.'



More @ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2109212/Morgan-Stanley-executive-charged-stabbing-racially-abusing-cab-driver-row-fare.html