Arna Kimiai, the woman who went viral earlier this month for assaulting and coughing on her Uber driver after he asked her to put on a mask, is now in police custody.
Kimiai turned herself in to San Francisco Police last Thursday, Vice News reports. Now that she’s there, she faces up to 20 years in prison for a variety of charges including battery of a transit employee, first-degree robbery, conspiracy to commit a crime, and violating California’s mask mandate and various coronavirus protocols.
If you haven’t seen the video, you can check it out here on ABC7 San Francisco anchor Dion Lim’s Instagram. Fair warning: it’s vulgar and beyond infuriating.
Aside from yelling racist slurs at driver Subhakar Khadka, Kimiai and her two fellow passengers refused to wear masks, grabbed Khadka’s phone, and ripped his mask off his face before dramatically coughing at him. It’s a horrifying assault of a transit worker who’s left with little recourse while having to drive some objectively unpleasant passengers around town.
It’s also worth noting that as a contractor, Khadka isn’t guaranteed health insurance by Uber despite the risk of coronavirus exposure he faces on a normal day of work.