A man who broke the nose of a female flight attendant is now suing the person he claims is actually responsible for the attack — a Manhattan vendor who allegedly left him with a brain injury in a random assault.
Brian Hsu of California — who was convicted of brutally punching the American Airlines worker in 2021 — filed a lawsuit this week against city street vendor River Tarpley, who allegedly assaulted him in Union Square roughly a month before the sky-high tirade.
“Our client has suffered irretrievably from the injuries he sustained at the hands of Tarpley and hopes this civil suit can bring him a small measure of justice,” said Hsu’s lawyer, Michael Lezamiz of Sutton & Smyth, LLP.
Hsu has previously claimed that the vendor’s attack on him gave him a brain injury which left him more prone to violent outbursts. Hsu said the injuries he sustained from the street attack triggered his in-flight punch, which left the flight attendant seriously wounded.
Tarpley’s assault on Hsu was “so extreme and outrageous to be considered atrocious and to shock the conscious” and left the California man with serious and lasting injuries, the new suit states.
Hsu’s suit, filed Wednesday in Manhattan Supreme Court, claims that Tarpley, 44, was “unprovoked” when he “violently attacked” the plaintiff, then 20, in the head and face and sent him flying to the pavement, “rendering him unconscious.”
Tarpley then dragged the knocked-out Hsu over the street, the suit claims — adding that the defendant was arrested and eventually criminally convicted in the case in May.
Hsu “sustained severe and permanent personal physical and psychological injuries” during the street assault needed “multiple surgeries to his skull and brain to alleviate said injuries,” the filing states.
Hsu underwent brain surgery after the Union Square attack and was flying back home to California with his mother when he went berserk on a flight attendant who asked him to take a seat.
The in-air attack forced the New York City-to-Santa Ana flight to make an emergency landing in Denver — and the airline immediately announced a lifetime ban against Hsu.
“I deeply regret the incident on the American Airlines flight and the harm I caused to the flight attendant,” Hsu said in a statement to The Post.
Hsu later pled guilty in his federal assault case and recently completed two years of probation, according to The Independent, who first reported news of his lawsuit against Tarpley.
Tarpley’s mother, Candece Tarpley, told The Independent that Hsu started the altercation and that he was acquitted of the initial charges against him.
According to court records, a jury acquitted Tarpley on two felony assault charges but found him guilty of one count of third degree misdemeanor assault, which was added at trial.
“The boy fell on his head, and they’re trying to blame [River]?” she told the UK-based outlet, referring to Hsu and his lawsuit. “My son stayed until the police came, he didn’t try to run away.”
When reached by phone, Tarpley told The Post, “No comment.”
He was sentenced to three years of probation in July for the incident involving Hsu, according to the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Hsu’s lawyer did not answer a Post request for comment.