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By: Ellen Cans
The son of a British banking exec was given a forgiving plea deal, after being charged with beating and strangling his girlfriend in Manhattan. As reported by The NY Post, New York-based comedian, model and actress Sienna Hubert-Ross said she was outraged to learn that prosecutors let her ex, Oliver Lane, off with a “slap on the wrist”, after his “horrific” attack on her. “This is a travesty of justice,” Hubert-Ross, 25, told The Post in a recent interview.
In her lawsuit, filed in September, Hubert-Ross alleges that the 6-foot-1, 165-pound accused ex towered over her 5-foot-9, 115-pound frame, as he “savagely threw her into a stove, then a bathtub, then punched her multiple times and threw her off a bed where she lost consciousness,” per the suit. On Aug. 8, the police arrived at the Lower East Side apartment, responding to Hubert-Ross’s friend’s call to 911.
Cops arrested Lane after finding Hubert-Ross “battered, bruised and bleeding,” per the lawsuit, which includes photos of extensive bruising on her body. Lane was charged with felony strangulation and misdemeanor assault for allegedly slapping and choking her with a pillow, per court records. Hours later, Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s office told a judge that the case was strong and that the alleged beating was extremely violent, as per the Post.
Lane, 26 is an Ivy League university graduate whose father is a former Morgan Stanley banker who now sits on the board of a company tied to a billionaire British duke. Months after the alleged beating, Bragg’s office apparently had a change of heart. In a December meeting at the DA’s office, prosecutors told Hubert-Ross that the prosecution would not be moving forward but rather was dropping the charges against Lane, she said.
Lane, who had faced up to seven years in prison if convicted on the case’s charges, was offered a plea deal in which he would only plead guilty to making “unreasonable noise”, on the condition that he go to therapy 16 times and adhere to a restraining order to stay away from Hubert-Ross until December 2026, court records show. Per the Post, the generous deal allows Lane to be subject to the same level of punishment as if he’d been ticketed for speeding, or parking in a handicapped space.
“I felt betrayed and re-victimized for myself and others,” said Hubert-Ross, who boasts 375,000 followers on Instagram. “Oliver should not be walking the streets with just a slap on the wrist, free to do this to other young women,” she said.
A spokesperson for the DA’s office said, prosecutors felt forced to drop the felony strangulation charge because the case lacked sufficient evidence of specific physical injuries to the neck, or that Hubert-Ross lost consciousness.
Brett Gallaway of the firm McLaughlin & Stern, Hubert-Ross’s lawyer in the ongoing Manhattan civil suit, said he is investigating why Bragg’s office offered Lane the lenient deal despite at first being confident in the case. “We are surprised and concerned that when presented with such clear and overwhelming evidence… that the DA’s office would be so quick to plea Mr. Lane down to a violation that is effectively the equivalent of a traffic ticket,” Gallaway told The Post. “This is someone who allegedly beat his defenseless and frightened girlfriend to a pulp,” the lawyer added.
