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Pinkberry Co-Founder Gets 7 Years In Prison For Beating Homeless Man With Tire Iron
Young Lee, the co-founder of popular frozen yogurt chain Pinkberry, will be spending the better part of the next decade in prison. A judge sentenced him to seven years behind bars today for beating up a homeless man with a tire iron.Lee was with his fiancee in his SUV on the Vermont Avenue offramp of the 101 in June of 2011 when he became enraged by a sexually explicit tattoo that Donald Bolding had. Bolding was panhandling on the side of the road at the time.
Lee apparently felt disrespected by the very sight of the tattoo, so he parked his SUV, walked over to Bolding and struck him twice in the head with a tire iron, screaming, "Apologize, you showed disrespect," City News Service reports. Witnesses actually had to stop Lee from beating Bolding further. Bolding suffered a broken arm and a concussion in the attack.
"I'm befuddled. I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' That's when he hits me with the tire iron," Bolding said, who also claimed that Lee tried to force him get down on his hands and knees to apologize, CNS says.
Lee was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon after a three-week trial in November. L.A. Superior Court judge Henry Hall called Lee a "threat to the community" after Lee was convicted.
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The sentence handed down today is the maximum allowed for his crime.
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