Ex-Moelis Banker Kaye Agrees to Plea Deal in Assault Case

February 28, 2025

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(Bloomberg) — Former Moelis & Co. senior banker Jonathan Kaye pleaded guilty to six misdemeanor charges stemming from a video of him punching a woman in the face last year, but will get his criminal case downgraded and dismissed if he fulfills certain conditions.

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Under his plea deal the charges, which include misdemeanor assault, will be turned into violations rather than a crime, wiping his record clean, a judge told Kaye at a hearing Friday in Brooklyn, New York. Kaye must complete 25 days of community service and three anger management sessions, and pay restitution of as much as $50,000, in total, to the woman and another he was accused of shoving to the ground.

Kaye has said he was acting in self-defense after a group of people surrounded him.

Judge Dale Fong-Frederick warned Kaye to comply with the deal and not to violate an order of protection for the two women or be arrested on any new charges. Otherwise the accord will be canceled and he will face as much as a year in jail. Kaye, 53, and his lawyer, Michael Farkas, declined to comment after court.

Kaye, a managing director who ran Moelis’ global business services franchise, resigned from the firm amid an outcry over the video. He is joining Rothschild & Co., Bloomberg reported last month. Rothschild will announce his hire on Monday now that he has reached the agreement to resolve the case, according to a person familiar with the matter.

The case started with an altercation in Brooklyn’s Park Slope neighborhood on the evening of the borough’s LGBTQ Pride event on June 8. Kaye was seen striking the woman in a video posted on X. Prosecutors said he pushed a second woman to the ground, causing her to hit the back of her head. He was charged with two counts each of assault, menacing and harassment.

Kaye’s lawyers at the time said he had been trying to defend himself after being “terrorized,” and vowed to seek “full vindication” for him. They said a separate video shared with prosecutors showed that “agitators formed a ring at him, doused him with two unknown liquids, shoved him to the ground and hurled antisemitic slurs at him.” A lawyer for the two women disputed that description.

(Updates with details and context throughout.)