PLANO, Texas – An Indian American victim of an August 2022 hate crime in Plano reached a civil settlement with her attacker on Wednesday. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed.
Dr. Bidisha Rudra, along with three other Indian American women friends, were accosted by 59-year-old Esmerelda Upton in the parking lot of the Sixty Vines restaurant after dinner. Upton shouted racial slurs, struck three of the women in an unprovoked assault, and threatened to shoot them, reaching into her handbag to ostensibly pull out a gun, Rudra’s attorney said. The interaction, which lasted several minutes, was caught on camera by the victims in a video that went viral. Upton was arrested by Plano police the next day. Last year in June, Upton pled guilty to four hate crimes and served 40 days confinement.
Rudra was represented pro bono by the Gibson Dunn law firm in her civil lawsuit against Upton. The case was referred by The Alliance for Asian American Justice, a national group that advocates for victims of anti-Asian hate.
“While this settlement offers a measure of closure, the deep scar left by the racial hate crime I endured remains with me,” said Rudra in a statement.
The video of the confrontation was uploaded to Reddit by a friend of one of the women. It went viral with a boost from Fifty Shades of Whey, an X account with a quarter of a million followers. The next day, Upton was identified by popular Tiktok-er That Danesh Guy with the help of Upton’s Texas license plate number, prominently shown in the video. Between all these social media platforms, the video received over a million views.
In the video, Upton can be seen approaching the camera, recording the four Indian American women who are off-screen.
“I hate you f*ing Indians,” she is heard saying. “Everywhere I f*ing go, you Indians are f*everywhere,” she says later.
Upton also demeans their accents and accuses them of “wanting everything for free.” However, according to data on income from the Census Bureau, Indian Americans have one of the highest per capital and household incomes in the US.
Later in the video, she is seen striking one of the victims.
“Guys, record, she is hitting me!” the victim exclaims.
Upton then demands they stop recording her. “Turn that g*d damn phone off or or I swear to god I’ll shoot your a*s,” she says, reaching into her handbag as though to pull out a gun.
Plano police arrested Upton the day after the incident, with a bond of $10,000. She was charged with Assault Bodily Injury and Terroristic Threats.
The police faced criticism from the community for not arresting her on the scene. However, in a Facebook statement, Plano police explained that by the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, they were not authorized to arrest her since the crime did not take place in their presence.
The conviction obtained by Collins County DA Greg Willis’s office shows that Upton eventually pled guilty to three misdemeanors for striking three of the victims, and another misdemeanor for issuing terroristic threats. Each of the misdemeanors received a hate crime enhancement.
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