Savannah Craven Antao, a 23-year-old pro-life activist, has filed a lawsuit after she was sucker-punched and left bloody by a woman she was interviewing during a man-on-the-street interview in Harlem, New York, in April.
BREAKING - DA Alvin Bragg’s office has dismissed charges against Brianna J. Rivers, who assaulted pro-life advocate Savannah Craven Antao on camera in April, allowing the felony to be downgraded to a misdemeanor and then dropped entirely. pic.twitter.com/pSbmVzPZSC
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) September 25, 2025
Her attacker, Brianna Rivers, was arrested and charged with felony assault. The charges were later downgraded to a misdemeanor, and Bragg's office ultimately deemed them overburdensome, leading to the case being dismissed.
NEW: Pro-life advocate Savannah Craven Antao says charges against the woman who brutally assaulted her on camera have been dismissed by DA Alvin Bragg's office.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) September 25, 2025
Craven Antao was assaulted back in April while conducting a street interview in NYC.
"Brianna J. Rivers was arrested… pic.twitter.com/BhgDJnwUzl
In the suit filed on Tuesday, Craven Antao alleges that the DA used a loophole to assign the case to a student "non-lawyer" and “the inexperienced non-lawyer assigned to the case under a ‘student practice’ rule allowed the discovery deadline to lapse.”
The lawsuit also alleges that prosecutors refused to refile the felony charges and chose not to pursue hate crime charges, even though evidence shows that Rivers’ attack “was committed in the context of her mockery of [Antao’s] Christian beliefs.”
Unfortunately, the suit is not against Bragg or his office.
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The DA even apologized that the case was tossed, blaming the dismissal on the transfer of the case to a new prosecutor.
“I have to look over my shoulder and worry about if somebody who supports her actions — there are a lot of people out there that do — that they’re going to try to do something else,” Craven Antao told Fox News. “Because what the DA Alvin Bragg himself has shown to people, with letting this case be dropped, is that they can go assault somebody and hurt them if they disagree with them and nothing is going to happen.”
Her lawyers come from the Thomas Moore Society, a national public interest law firm defending life, family, and freedom, who argue that Craven Antao's attacker “knowingly, willfully and maliciously continued to mock [Antao] and her views online in order to further inflict emotional distress." They said that Rivers even boasted on social media about attacking the pro-life advocate after the incident.
