A man charged with assault for blowing on two activists outside of a golf club owned by former President Trump has settled his case by donating $3,000 to the NAACP.
The Loudoun Times-Mirror reports that Raymond Deskins, 61, sent the check to the NAACP Loudoun Branch through his attorney Michelle Thomas.
According to the newspaper, Thomas thanked the two women Deskins breathed on, Kathy Beynette and Patricia Razeghi, for suggesting the idea. The money will go toward scholarships for graduating seniors at the 17 high schools in Loudoun.
“I’m grateful for them,” Thomas said. “Helping kids achieve their college dreams is a great way to respond to bad with good.”
Deskins was seen in a video shared last November getting into a verbal altercation with the two women, who were protesting outside of Trump’s golf club in Sterling, Va.
In the clip, one of the women tells Deskins to get away from her, asking that he keep his distance since he was not wearing a mask. Deskins responded by taking a deep breath and blowing in their direction.
Deskins was later charged with misdemeanor assault for intentionally exhaling on the two women. He faced up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine before the women suggested their idea.
“We had to do all the work ourselves. We had to be the victims of the crime. We had to be the law enforcers for the crime. It was it was pretty unpleasant,” Beynette told the Times-Mirror.
“We were really up against it, and it took a lot to get this thing to go to court,” Razeghi added. “It took a lot of pushing, but we did it. So, we figured we got to make something good out of it.”