Herman Brightman of Central Islip charged with kidnapping, menacing girlfriend, DA says

A Central Islip man who met his girlfriend on the dating app Hinge was charged Tuesday with kidnapping and threatening to kill her, the Queens District Attorney’s office announced.

The man, 30-year-old Herman Brightman, is accused of threatening to kill the woman with a knife, binding her wrists and taping her mouth shut, the office wrote in a news release, which did not say where the woman lived.

Brightman pleaded not guilty, according to online court records. 

His attorney, the Legal Aid Society’s Christopher Healy, didn’t return a voice message seeking comment. The woman’s name wasn’t disclosed. Brightman was ordered jailed without bail, the records show.

Charges in an indictment against Brightman, of Branch Avenue, include kidnapping, unlawful imprisonment, criminal mischief and menacing, the release said.

“The defendant terrorized his girlfriend in her own home. Wielding a knife, he threatened to gut her; he threatened to kill her. She is fortunate to have escaped with her life,” Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz wrote in a statement.

Brightman was arraigned Tuesday; the case is due back in court Nov. 28.

According to the release, the crime happened Aug. 7, when Brightman and the woman, whom he had met months earlier on Hinge, got into an argument at her home. He threw her computer monitor onto the floor, shattering the screen. The release also said:

• “Brightman told the woman to sit on her bed while he went into the kitchen and got a knife. He then chopped her cellphone with the knife.”
• “He climbed on top of the woman, poked her with the tip of the knife, placed his hands on her mouth and threatened to gut her. He asked her which part of her body she wanted him to cut first.”
• “Brightman told her to turn up the music that was playing and looked through a window to check for neighbors. He then told the woman that he was going to kill her.”
• "He taped the woman’s mouth shut, bound her wrists behind her back and demanded she sit in a corner of the room.”

The release, which did not explain the elapsed time between the incident and the indictment, said other women Brightman dated might have been victims. He also goes by the alias Nazir Griffiths.

By Matthew Chayes

matthew.chayes@newsday.comchayesmatthew

Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.