Healthcare aide to feted architect I.M. Pei, 98, charged with assaulting him

NEW YORK - A healthcare aide to architect I.M. Pei, whose work includes the John Fitzgerald Kennedy Library in Boston and Qatar's Museum of Islamic Art, has been charged with assaulting the 98-year-old in his Manhattan townhouse, the police said on Thursday (Dec 31).

Eter Nikolaishvili, 28, was arrested on Tuesday on suspicion of assaulting Mr Pei earlier this month when Mr Pei threatened to call police on her for "doing something bad", the police said.

Neither a representative for Nikolaishvili nor the Manhattan district attorney's office could be reached for comment.

Pei was taken to the hospital at 4am on the day of the alleged assault suffering from bleeding lacerations and bruising on his forearm after Nikolaishvili grabbed and twisted his arm, police said.

Police investigated the incident for weeks before making the arrest.

Nikolaishvili was arraigned on Tuesday and released without bail, the New York Post reported.

Mr Pei was born Ieoh Ming Pei in China in 1917 and came to the United States to study architecture at age 17, according to his website.

Mr Pei has won numerous prestigious awards for his work, including the Medal of Freedom by President George H. W. Bush in 1993 and the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in 2003.

His celebrated architectural projects include hotels, hospitals, schools, government buildings and dozens of museums and cultural centres around the world, such as the Grand Louvre in Paris - Mr Pei's renovation of the Louvre Museum, including his controversial glass pyramid entrance - the Bank of China Tower in Hong Kong and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.