Morgan Stanley exec charged with hate crime over taxi driver stabbing

Morgan Stanley’s William Bryan Jennings, the bank’s bond-underwriting chief in the U.S., was charged with a hate crime in the Connecticut stabbing of a New York City cab driver of Middle Eastern descent.

The driver told officers that Jennings assaulted him Dec. 22 with a pen knife and used racial slurs after a 40-mile cab ride from New York City to his multimillion dollar home, Darien Police Detective Mark Cappelli said in an interview.

Jennings, 45, has worked at Morgan Stanley for his entire securities-industry career, starting in 1993, according to his regulatory record with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. He is co-head of North American fixed-income capital markets, having worked his way up from associate; vice president and then principal, for debt capital markets; to executive director for investment banking and then managing director for fixed income capital markets.

“He has been placed on leave,” Pen Pendleton, a spokesman for Morgan Stanley, said today of Jennings. A lawyer for Jennings said in an interview that his client was held against his will in a dispute over the fare and feared for his safety.

On the night of the incident, Jennings and the cab driver had a dispute about the fare for the trip from New York, where the executive had attended a charity event, to his $3.4 million home in Darien. While sitting in his driveway, Jennings refused to pay the $200 cab fare, the driver told police.

Second Degree Assault

Cappelli said Jennings is charged with second-degree assault, for allegedly cutting the cab driver, theft of services and intimidation by bias or bigotry. He was released on $9,500 bond and will make a court appearance on March 9.

“My client was the victim of a crime that night — not the perpetrator of one,” Eugene Riccio, an attorney for Jennings, said. “He was abducted against his will from his own driveway. Fortunately he was able to escape.”

Riccio said the driver made an “exorbitant demand” closer to $300.

The driver drove off with Jennings in the car and threatened to return to New York, Riccio said. The driver, who wasn’t identified, was trying to find an officer to settle the dispute, police said.

Riccio said the driver was “seconds away” from the on- ramp to the highway heading back to the city when Jennings drew a pen knife from his pocket.

“He pulled it out in an effort to try to get the man to stop,” Riccio said. “He was in a car that was racing down the road, disobeying traffic signals with the back door open.”

Jennings denied making any racial slurs, Riccio said.

The Morgan Stanley executive graduated from Williams College and received a master’s in business from Northwestern University.

–Bloomberg News–

Related Topics: Banking, Morgan Stanley & Co.