Teen Charged with Hate Crime

[DarkPrincess]

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A grand jury has indicted a Long Island teenager on a charge of second-degree murder as a hate crime in the stabbing death of an Ecuadoran immigrant this month, according to the indictment, unsealed Thursday in Suffolk County District Court.
Marcello Lucero, 37, was stabbed to death in an attack that police say was a hate crime.





Jeffrey Conroy, 17, had been charged with first-degree manslaughter as a hate crime, one count each of gang assault and conspiracy and two counts each of attempted assault and attempted gang assault.
The "hate crime" designation would add to any sentence imposed upon conviction.
Six teenage co-defendants were arraigned Thursday on the same assault, conspiracy and gang assault charges as Conroy. One of the six faces an additional charge of criminal mischief.
Marcello Lucero, 37, was walking to a friend's apartment in Patchogue, New York, when he was attacked late in the evening of November 8, police said. Officers found that he had been stabbed in the chest, and he died of his injuries. A friend with Lucero was not injured.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/20/...ime/index.html

Sounds like it fits the bill for a hate crime.

[crickett]

Out looking for latinos to assault but plea that it wasn't a hate crime....of course it's NOT a hate crime once you're caught...that adds more years.

[Dakota Valkyrie]

On trial:

In her opening statement, Ms. O’Donnell described how the teenagers, including Mr. Conroy, roamed the village of Patchogue that Saturday evening for one purpose: to find a Hispanic person to assault.

“They were not in Patchogue looking to go to a party,” said Ms. O’Donnell, an assistant district attorney in Suffolk County. They were, instead, “looking for blood — specifically, Mexican blood.” They called the sport Mexican-hopping or beaner-hopping, she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/19/ny...l?ref=nyregion

For the second day, the trial in State Supreme Court here of the teenager, Jeffrey Conroy, now 19, focused in part not on Mr. Conroy’s actions that evening, but on the 39 minutes it took from the time the 911 call was made to the time Mr. Lucero arrived at Brookhaven Memorial Hospital Medical Center.

The delay in getting Mr. Lucero to the hospital is playing a role in Mr. Conroy’s defense. A forensic pathologist who previously examined Mr. Lucero’s autopsy report at the request of The New York Times described the single stab wound as a survivable injury if promptly treated.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/20/ny...l?ref=nyregion

“He said, ‘I have a blade on me,’ ” Officer Richardsen told the prosecutor, Megan O’Donnell. “He told me to lift up his sweatshirt.” He did so, he said, and saw a pocketknife in the waistband of Mr. Conroy’s underwear. The jury was shown pictures of the small, black-handled knife. The officer opened the knife to extend the blade.

“I said, ‘There’s blood on this,’ ” Officer Richardsen said. “He paused for a minute, and he said, ‘I stabbed him.’ ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/ny...l?ref=nyregion

The defendant, Jeffrey Conroy, was watching the HBO prison drama “Oz” in April 2008 when he decided it would be cool to get tattoos, said Keith Brunjes, who described himself as Conroy’s best friend. Over the course of several weeks, Brunjes applied a star tattoo to one of Conroy’s arms, a lightning bolt on the other arm and the swastika on the outside of his upper right thigh.

Assistant District Attorney Megan O’Donnell asked if they discussed what the tattoos symbolized. “He just said, ‘If I ever go to jail, I’m screwed,’” replied Brunjes.

Alyssa Sprague, 17, said she’d only known Conroy about two weeks before he was arrested. He and another friend were at her house for dinner on the evening Lucero was killed when he showed her the lightning bolt tattoo.

“I thought it was a Gatorade symbol. He said, no, it was white power,” she testified.

Defense attorney William Keahon downplayed the significance of the tattoos while leaving court Tuesday. “It was two young kids acting like jerks,” he said.
[...]

Conroy, 19, is one of seven Long Island teenagers implicated in the Lucero’s Nov. 8, 2008, death, but he is the only one being prosecuted on charges of murder and manslaughter as a hate crime; prosecutors say Conroy is the one who actually stabbed Lucero.

He has pleaded not guilty and is the first to face trial. Four of his co-defendants have pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges and could testify against him.
[...]

The four teens who pleaded guilty admitted participating in other attacks on Hispanics, confessing they and their accomplices frequently used racial epithets when confronting victims. In one instance, a Hispanic man was shot with a BB gun.

http://www.longislandpress.com/2010/...astika-tattoo/

[Pete Bondurant]

The only crime committed here is the prosecution of these boys by overzealous and probably communist officials.

[Whisper]

Teen convicted of manslaughter in hate crime
RIVERHEAD, New York — A former high school athlete who plunged a knife into the chest of an Ecuadorean immigrant during a street fight was convicted of manslaughter as a hate crime Monday but acquitted of murder.
The killing cast a spotlight on hate crimes in the U.S. against Hispanics.
Jeffrey Conroy, 19, was one of seven teenagers implicated in the November 2008 stabbing death of Marcelo Lucero in what prosecutors say was the culmination of an ongoing campaign of violence targeting Hispanics. The teens alluded to "beaner-hopping" or "Mexican hopping."
Four others have pleaded guilty to hate crime-related charges; two are awaiting trial.
Conroy was the only one of the seven charged with murder and manslaughter; prosecutors said he was the one who inflicted the fatal wound in a midnight fight near the Patchogue train station. He faces eight to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced on May 26.
[...]
Conroy, a three-sport athlete at Patchogue-Medford High School, admitted to police he was responsible for the stabbing but took the witness stand to say he had taken the blame for one of his co-defendants — a teenager he had just met earlier that night.
Lucero, 37, was walking with a friend when they were confronted by the teenagers. Prosecutors say the teens were walking around town looking for targets, began yelling ethnic slurs and approached the two men. One of the teens punched Lucero in the face. Within moments, Lucero and his friend were swinging their belts in self-defense and began to pursue the teens to a parking lot.
Prosecutors said that when Lucero hit Conroy in the head with the belt, the teen lost his temper, opened the folding knife and ran toward Lucero, lunging at Lucero’s chest.
Conroy, who has been held without bail since his arrest the night of the killing, testified that co-defendant Christopher Overton told him he had stabbed Lucero.
[...]
Overton has pleaded not guilty in the Lucero killing and is awaiting sentencing after pleading guilty to burglary in a 2007 home invasion. His attorney has derided Conroy’s claims as scapegoating by someone facing a long prison term.

Many Hispanics attacked in the days before Lucero’s killing were afraid to report the crimes to police, fearing questions about their immigration status, prosecutors said. A September 2009 report by the Southern Poverty Law Center, a national civil rights organization, included the Lucero killing in its decade-long timeline documenting anti-immigrant attacks throughout the country.
[...]
We Hispanics are so unsafe when we go elsewhere, and let’s hope that everyone involved in that group that mistreats Hispanics is punished," said Nimia Villacreces, a 33-year-old auditor.
[...]
"What concerns us in the United States are crimes of hatred and xenophobia, obviously linked to racism," he said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. "And we believe that in the trial of Mr. Lucero, there must be a sentence of the greatest severity so that this kind of crime is not repeated
[...]

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/nat...ne#articleFull

Robert Conroy, right, father of accused teenager Jeffrey Conroy, stands with his son’s attorney William Keahon at the Suffolk criminal court building in Riverhead, N.Y., as jury deliberations began Thursday

[TheMorningStar]

Jeffrey Conroy, 17, foreground, and other teens arrested in a hate crime murder, are led out of the Fifth Precinct in Patchogue, N.Y., for arraignment on gang assault charges in connection with the death of a 37-year old immigrant.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/na...d_Long_Island/

[Pete Bondurant]

I pardon you.

[Hellsbells]

Man sentenced to 25 years in stabbing death of immigrant

New York (CNN) -- A Long Island, New York, man was sentenced to 25 years in prison -- the maximum -- Wednesday for his role in the stabbing death of an immigrant from Ecuador.

Jeffrey Conroy was convicted in April of manslaughter as a hate crime in the death of Marcelo Lucero, an immigrant from Ecuador.

Upon hearing the sentence, Conroy's father, Robert, cursed and yelled, saying "He was 17, for Christ's sake!" The elder Conroy was escorted out of the courtroom by guards and held in a private room until he regained control. He would not speak to reporters.

Conroy was accused of having a hand in the death of Lucero, 37, who was fatally stabbed in the chest on November 8, 2008, in Patchogue, New York.

Conroy was also found guilty of gang assault and conspiracy as well as of assaulting three other Latino men on Long Island.

He was found not guilty of murder as a hate crime, the most serious charge he faced.

Prosecutors say Conroy and six friends in 2008 targeted Latinos for assaults -- part of a sport they called "beaner-hopping."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/05/26/...ing/index.html

[Athena]

While I don't believe that individuals should be charged as adults until they're legally considered adults, I don't find this sentence to be particularly unreasonable.

It seems the fact that a man lost his life has escaped the elder Mr. Conroy.

[Pete Bondurant]

This young man was only doing what the Federal Government should be doing.....uh....more or less.

[TheMorningStar]

The last of seven Long Island teenagers involved in the 2008 stabbing death of an Ecuadorean immigrant has been sentenced to five years in prison. Marcelo Lucero (mar-SEHL'-oh loo-SEHR'-oh) was stabbed in a confrontation near the Patchogue (PACH'-awg), N.Y., train station. The killing focused the national immigration debate on Long Island.
Nicholas Hausch, who's now 19, was a key prosecution witness in the trial against co-defendant Jeffrey Conroy.
Hausch said Conroy admitted inflicting what turned out to be the fatal blow.
Conroy was the only defendant to go to trial. He was convicted of manslaughter and is serving a 25-year prison term.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101014/...RueXRlZW5zZQ--