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Screen shot of Jonathan 'Jessica' Yaniv attacking Rebel reporter Jan. 13, 2020 outside of court in Surrey, British Columbia. Rebel / Twitter screen grab

SURREY, British Columbia, January 23, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) ― A transgender activist best known for suing beauticians who refused to wax his male genitals has been charged with assault. 

Jonathan “Jessica” Yaniv was arrested last weekend by Surrey RCMP for striking journalist Keean Bexte. If found guilty of assault, Yaniv potentially faces five years in jail.

“In a surprising turn of events, Jonathan Yaniv has finally been held accountable for his violent behavior over the past two years,” Bexte said on a videotaped segment for Rebel News.

“And that took the form of him being arrested for assaulting me just over a week ago now,” he continued. 

“And that reckoning will come in its totality if Jonathan Yaniv does spend five years in prison, as is the maximum sentence for the indicted criminal charge of assaulting someone. Now that would be real justice.” 

Bexte speculated that Yaniv had spent time in jail before being released into the community. He reported that Yaniv’s bail stipulations include the proviso that the transgender activist neither contact the reporter nor ask someone else to do so. 

Bexte has already pledged to sue Yaniv in civil court for the alleged assault, which is said to have taken place outside a Surrey courthouse on January 13. The reporter is being joined in the suit by another journalist. David Menzies was filming Yaniv  last August when the transgender activist allegedly struck him with a pink cane. 

Bexte managed to film the altercation, and his video, which he published, shows Yaniv veering from his path to confront the reporter, who is over 10 feet away, while waving his arm, shouting and cursing, and punching in Bexte’s direction. The audio plays the sounds of Bexte grunting in pain and shouting “Stop.”   

The video clip has now been seen over two million times. 

Bexte told online newspaper The Daily Wire that he had only one question for Yaniv― whether or not he would plead guilty. 

“Within several seconds, Yaniv charged me and punched the back of my head while holding me down,” he added. 

“Police have been reluctant to charge him before, and so I’m speaking to legal counsel to figure out my options to make sure this menace sees justice.”

Yaniv had appeared before the court on a prohibited weapons charge. The transgender activist had displayed a Taser to another transgender activist during a social media debate about Yaniv’s complaints to the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal against a number of beauticians. The activist, who has not obtained so-called “bottom surgery,” took offense when the aestheticians refused to wax his male genitalia.  

At one point during the hour-long Facebook show, Yaniv disappeared momentarily, returned and said, “I don’t need to be scared in my own house, that I’m going to get (expletive) attacked,” before raising the Taser and activating it on screen.

The Blaze reported that Yaniv had apparently been disturbed by his interlocutor saying that young girls in bathroom stalls needed to carry pepper spray to protect themselves from people like Yaniv.

Shortly after his alleged attack on Keena Bexte, Yaniv accused a female reporter, Amy Eileen Hamm, of having sexually assaulted him at the courthouse that day. Hamm is suing Yaniv for defamation.