Emelia Holden is the 21-year-old waitress who was seen in the now-viral video of a waitress slamming Ryan Cherwinski to the ground when he groped at Vinnie Van Go-Go’s in Savannah, Georgia.
Cherwinski, 31, of Palm Bay, Florida, was arrested and charged with sexual battery. He reportedly told police that it was just an accident and that he grabbed the waitress because he was “trying to inform her to move because she was in the way.”
Following the assault, Holden’s co-worker called police. The officers detained Cherwinski after looking at the surveillance footage, Savannah Police Department spokesperson Bianca Johnson confirmed. The outlet reported Cherwinski was charged with sexual battery.
via Fox News:
Emelia Holden, 21, a server at Vinnie Van Go-Go’s in Savannah, was putting menus away on June 30 after taking a customer’s order. In the security footage, a male customer, walking behind her, reaches out and gropes her as he passes by.
Holden immediately turns around and grabs him by his T-shirt collar, before wrapping her arm around his neck and slamming him against the wall. Holden then appears to point her finger at him and reprimand him.
Video of the incident was posted this week on Reddit, where it garnered more than 4,200 comments. The title of the post read: “My cousin takes down this pervert down for grabbing her a–. He is later arrested in front of his wife and 2 kids when the cops arrived.”
Due to her 15 minutes of viral attention, Holden created a GoFundMe account to raise money for cat shelters. At the time of this writing, the GoFundMe page has raised over $7,250 of her $5,000 goal.
Holden says she hopes her experience empower other women to stand up for themselves, saying “you have every right to wear what you want and you most certainly have every right to defend yourself.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmDVkYTMElM