A 30-year-old New Jersey man pretended to be a nurse online in order to lure unsuspecting New York women into “romantic relationships,” only to kidnap the victims, including a victim’s 2-year-old child, and commit “deeply disturbing and heinous acts,” authorities allege.
Herman Calvin Brightman, aka Nazir Griffiths and Nazir Luckett, used Facebook and the dating app Hinge to “meet, and occasionally date, several women under false pretenses” and got violent when the victims tried to leave him, and the alleged crimes span roughly from November 2021 to September 2023, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.
According to the indictment, Brightman, of West New York, N.J., gained the victims’ trust and lured them into relationships by lying that he was “a medical professional in the New York area.”
“Shortly after BRIGHTMAN lured each of these victims into a romantic relationship, BRIGHTMAN began a disturbing pattern of abuse, during which he assaulted, kidnapped, threatened, and stalked the victims,” court documents said.
The victims are four adult women and the 2-year-old child of one of those women, DOJ said.
“Specifically, after establishing a romantic relationship with each victim […] the defendant […] kidnapped, one of the victims and her minor child at knifepoint; bound and gagged a second victim while he threatened to kill her; punched and choked a third victim, then stalked her at her workplace to ensure she did not report the attack to the authorities; and held a fourth victim hostage in her apartment and repeatedly assaulted her until she escapes,” the indictment summarized the alleged offenses.
The DOJ said that Brightman in November 2021 contacted Victim-1 by Facebook, told her he was a nurse, and between January 2022 and July 2022 “assaulted Victim-1 on multiple occasions during their relationship.” When the woman tried to end the relationship that summer, Brightman allegedly responded by kidnapping the woman and child at knifepoint from Mount Vernon, N.Y., to his New Jersey home.
Once there, the defendant allegedly threatened to kill the woman and held her and the child “against their will for several hours” before the woman was able to call the police officers who rescued the mother and child.
In May 2023, Brightman used Hinge and “enticed Victim-2 to enter into a romantic relationship with him,” after he — again — passed himself off as a nurse, the feds said.
By early August, the defendant allegedly went to the Queens, N.Y., woman’s apartment, “bound Victim-2’s hands with tape,” and threatened to kill her with a knife and “gut” her “like a fish.” Six days later, after the woman tried to end the relationship, the defendant called her phone “more than 20 times” and threatened her over the phone when she answered one of the calls, the DOJ said.
The same month, Brightman shifted his attention to Victim-3, a Bronx, N.Y., woman, telling her he was a nurse and convincing her to start a relationship, authorities alleged.
In early September, after the woman and Brightman started getting into arguments and she “began to distance herself from BRIGHTMAN,” the defendant allegedly drove from New Jersey to her Bronx apartment, called her up on the phone to “lure her to [his] car,” and then “punched, choked, and strangled Victim-3” as he held her against her will, the indictment said.
The woman was able to escape from the car to her apartment building and then called the cops, but the defendant showed up at her place of work days later, interrogated her about whether she called the cops, followed her home, pushed her, and even threw a traffic cone at her, according to the DOJ.
Also in August and September 2023, Brightman allegedly used Hinge to start a relationship with Victim-4. Near the end of September, the two argued and Victim-4 blocked Brightman’s number, DOJ said. Rather than ceasing communication with the woman then and there, Brightman is accused of driving from New Jersey to the Bronx and calling the woman up from a different cell phone number.
After he “persuaded Victim-4 to let [him] into her residence,” the defendant allegedly “assaulted, strangled, choked, and threatened to kill” the woman until she “escaped by running away.”
Prosecutors further alleged that Brightman tried to rape Victim-4 and threatened to kill her.
Herman Brightman allegedly pictured in lab coat and mask (left), (right) in an image wearing scrubs (photos via DOJ)
The eight-count indictment for kidnapping, stalking, interstate travel to commit domestic violence, interstate threats, and cyberstalking means that Brightman faces up to 85 years in prison if convicted as charged, including a potential mandatory minimum of 20 years (with the possibility of a life sentence) for the alleged kidnapping of Victim 1’s child.
U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams said in a statement that the defendant “preyed upon woman after woman using the internet to lure these women into meeting and dating him,” then “quickly became physically abusive towards them, going so far as to kidnap the women at knifepoint and threaten to kill them.”
“Today’s charges put a stop to this abusive and violent behavior. We thank and commend the courageous women who came forward to report Brightman,” Williams said.
NYPD Commissioner Edward Caban also weighed in on the case, calling Brightman a “serial predator” who perpetrated “deeply disturbing and heinous acts.”
Court records reviewed by Law&Crime show that Brightman appeared in court Monday with his counsel, Federal Defender Neil Kelly. U.S. Magistrate Judge Barbara C. Moses ordered the defendant detained on grounds of “Risk of Flight/Danger. A status conference was also set for Wednesday morning in U.S. District Judge John P. Cronan’s courtroom.
The indictment was filed under seal last Thursday, Dec. 7, and was unsealed four days later, when Brightman was arrested.
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