Injured Biker’s Wife and Gloria Allred Say He Is ‘Innocent Victim’

Family of Edwin Mieses(NEW YORK) — The wife of the motorcyclist who was critically injured in Sunday’s melee between bikers and an SUV driver has hired prominent attorney Gloria Allred to represent her and talk about her husband’s health.

Allred said Friday that Edwin Mieses was taken out of a medically induced coma on Wednesday, is in enormous pain, and has not yet been interviewed by police about his role in the confrontation, which included 20 to 30 motorcyclists and an assault on an SUV driver.

Mieses pulled over from the group ride on Sunday after another biker was hit by a Range Rover, Allred said. The Range Rover, driven by Alexien Lien, then sped away from the group of motorcyclists, hitting Mieses and others. Mieses suffered spinal injuries and two broken legs, she said.

Other bikers eventually caught up with Lien and he was assaulted.

Mieses was an “innocent victim” who was trying to “diffuse the situation,” Allred said, after the first biker was bumped by the Ranger Rover and other bikers became angry and began slowing down and closing in on the Range Rover.

Mieses was urging bikers to keep riding and move on, she said, and he had his back turned and was walking back to his bike when he was “run over” by the Range Rover.

Mieses’ wife, Dayana Mejia, and father, Edwin Mieses, Sr., appeared with Allred at a news conference Friday in New York.

“I love him so much it tears me up that anyone could think that Edwin in any way deserves what happened to him,” Mejia said, crying.

The couple has not decided whether to file a lawsuit, Allred said, and they are not asking for charges to be pressed against Lien at this time.

New York City police believe they’ve identified the prime suspect who smashed Lien’s SUV window with his helmet and attacked him, and are working to bring him into custody, according to law enforcement sources. He could be turning himself in to police as early as Friday evening, the sources said.

Police have not named the man or said when he might be apprehended for a confrontation during which the “terrified” SUV driver’s wife called 911 four times in nine minutes.

The incident started Sunday afternoon as Lien and his wife, Rosalyn Ng, planned to celebrate their wedding anniversary with their 2-year-old daughter, Ng said in a statement Thursday released through the couple’s attorneys. Instead, she said, they were swarmed by a motorcycle rally on Manhattan’s West Side Highway.

A biker who was along for the ride said Lien was driving erratically on the highway moments before the initial confrontation occurred.

“He was all over the place when he got on the highway,” Sean Thomas told ABC News on Thursday. “He started from this lane to that lane to this lane, speeding up and this was the reason he was surrounded.”

Ng and her husband have not responded directly to accusations that his driving prompted the confrontation. Police have not commented on that aspect of their investigation.

Dozens of bikers rode alongside Lien’s Range Rover until a biker slowed down and the vehicles bumped, police said, noting that Lien then sped off, accelerating his SUV through the crowd of motorcyclists and hitting Mieses.

Lien took off because he felt threatened by the group, according to his wife.

The bikers then chased the Ranger Rover through the streets of Manhattan. The couple’s fear was evident in Ng’s 911 call from inside the Range Rover, according to NYPD Deputy Commissioner John McCarthy, who said that the tenor and number of her calls proved how “terrified” they were in the face of the group of bikers.

Ng placed four calls from inside the Range Rover in a span of nine minutes, ending as ambulances and police finally arrived at the site where Lien was assaulted.

Bystanders intervened and helped to stop the assault when the bikers, angry over the confrontation, attacked her husband, Ng said in her statement. Six minutes of the confrontation were captured on video taken by a motorcyclist’s helmet camera and uploaded to the Internet.

“Our fear for our lives was confirmed when the incident ended with the ruthless and brutal attack on my husband, me, and, most importantly, our 2-year-old child,” Ng said in the statement.

Christopher Cruz, 28, of Passaic, N.J., is the only biker charged so far in connection with the investigation. Cruz was the motorcyclist who slowed down, resulting in the SUV’s bumping him, according to police. Cruz was charged with reckless driving and false imprisonment. It’s unclear whether he has entered a plea. He appeared in court briefly Friday and is scheduled for another court appearance on Oct. 24.

Ng said her family’s sympathies went out to Mieses. Mieses’ wife said the injuries he sustained might leave him paralyzed.

No additional arrests have been made in the case. One motorcyclist seen on the video banging on the SUV’s window turned himself into police earlier in the week and was questioned and released, police said.

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