Fridae

Eight suspects have been charged in connection with a series of brutal, anti-gay hate crimes in what was described by a city official as the "most vicious anti-gay crime in the city's history".

Eight suspects have been charged in the abductions and attacks on three men on Oct. 3.

The suspects were identified in media reports as Bryan Almonte, 17, Steven Carabello, 17, Brian Cepeda, 17, Nelson Falu, 17, Idelfonso Mendez, 23, Dennis Piters, 17, David Rivera, 21, and Elmer Confresi, 23. Charges against them include harassment, criminal possession of a weapon, unlawful imprisonment, assault, robbery and sexual abuse as hate crimes. Police have said the teenagers are being charged as adults. A ninth suspect, previously identified as 22-year-old Ruddy Vargas-Perez, remains at large.

Police say the nine members of the gang known as Latin King Goonies held three victims against their will last week – beat them in a vacant apartment and sodomised two of them. A fourth victim was beaten and robbed in connection with the attacks, New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has said.

According to reports, the gang had heard a rumour one of their teenage recruits was gay and then found the teen, stripped him, beat him and sodomised him with a plunger handle until he confessed to having had sex with an older man, police say.

The New York Times described the attack in a report Lured Into a Trap, Then Tortured for Being Gay:

"The attackers forced the man to strip to his underwear and tied him to a chair, the police said. One of the teenage victims was still there, and the “Goonies” ordered him to attack the man. The teenager hit him in the face and burned him with a cigarette on his nipple and penis as the others jeered and shouted gay slurs, the police said. Then the attackers whipped the man with a chain and sodomized him with a small baseball bat.

"The beatings and robberies went on for hours. They were followed by a remarkably thorough attempt to sanitize the house — including pouring bleach down drains, the police said, as little by little word of the attacks trickled to the police. A crucial clue to the attackers was provided by someone who slipped a note to a police officer outside the crime scene, at 1910 Osborne Place in Morris Heights, near Bronx Community College."

Before setting upon their 30-year-old victim, at about 3.30am last Sunday, the group grabbed the 17-year-old and took him to the house where they tortured and abused him.

The Times reported: "He was beaten, made to strip naked, slashed with a box cutter, hit on the head with a can of beer and sodomized with the wooden handle of a plunger, the police said. And he was interrogated about the 30-year-old and asked if they had had sex.

"The teenager said that they had. The gang members set him loose, warning him to keep quiet or they would hurt his friends and family. The teenager walked into a nearby hospital and said he had been jumped by strangers on the street and robbed."

At 8.30pm the same day, the group members grabbed a second 17-year-old, beating and likewise interrogating him about his contact with the 30-year-old.

"He, too, said he had had sex with the man. They took his jewelry and held him while the 30-year-old arrived for what he thought was a party, his arms filled with 10 tall cans of Four Loko, a caffeine-infused malt liquor. He had cleaned out a store of its entire stock," the Times reported.

"He was immediately set upon and tied up. Then the assailants ordered the second teenager to attack the 30-year-old, and they joined in the beating. The beating lasted hours, the police said. The attackers forced the man to drink all 10 cans of liquor — each about twice the size of a can of beer, with a higher alcohol content, 10 percent to 12 percent, according to Four Loko’s Web site."

City officials including Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg have denounced the crimes saying: “When you hear the details of what occurred, torture really is the only word that comes to mind. I was sickened by the brutal nature of these crimes and saddened at the anti-gay bias that contributed to them,” Bloomberg said. “Hate crimes such as these strike fear into all of us.”

Christine C. Quinn, the City Council speaker, who is gay, added: “These crimes are not jokes. They are not games. They are things that eat away at the fabric of our city.”

Executive Director of the NYC Anti-Violence Project, Sharon Stapel was quoted by the Associated Press as saying: “We have to stop thinking that it’s OK to bully LGBT people or make fun of LGBT people. What we see now is the link between casual sort of comments and the real and horrific violence that results because those comments contribute to an entire culture of violence,” she said.

CNN reports that the brutal attacks are the latest in a string of some 45 alleged hate crimes in New York this year.